Political socialization

In the system of political processes, political socialization occupies a special place for the reason that this process is inherent in all people, without exception, and continues throughout life. Often you have to hear conjectures, statements from an individual about his political malfunction. They say that they are not interested in politics, do not engage in political activities and in general, that politics is not interested. Yes, you can not be interested in politics as such. But no one can exclude himself from the system of political relations . The political sphere of society is as objective as the rest - economic, social and spiritual-cultural. Namely, therefore, no one can "get out" of it, just as one can not refuse the consumption of products, communication, the assimilation of skills of interaction with other people.

This is the objective presence of people in political reality and reflects such a phenomenon as political socialization.

In the simplest sense, this phenomenon can be regarded as a derivative of the general socialization of the individual. The main difference is that political socialization assumes the individual's absorption of a narrower and more specific set of values and norms-political ones. In the course of this process, the individual forms a certain system of political values, orientations, preferences, and then attitudes that determine the degree of his involvement in real political life. This is characterized by a different concept - political participation.

The content of political socialization consists of laws, rules and rules for conducting political activities, stereotypes and patterns of political behavior and political thinking, ideas, theories, political programs and symbols, and much more, which ultimately allows us to formulate criteria for attitudes to power and ensure our own political identification.

These attributes are learned by the person in the course of the bilateral process, which is political socialization. On the one hand, there is a person in it, on the other - sources - parents, a class of classmates, teachers, teachers. However, the main agents of political socialization are political institutions: the state, parties, social movements and organizations.

Of the two-sided nature, the social functions that carry out this process also follow. First of all, it is an orientation function that allows an individual more or less to be determined in political space and time. Secondly, it is a function of adaptation and aggregation, which allows a person to have the skills to perform some meaningful actions within the political reality. These actions are reflected, as a rule, through the role behavior of the individual.

With all the subjectivity of the process, the political socialization of the individual has some regularities, allowing in its course to distinguish two main types.

The primary phase involves the formation of the individual initial ideas about the policy at the level of symbols, collective action under the leadership of someone, the formation of personal criteria for assessing political reality. As a rule, these qualities characterize the political socialization of young people.

In the course of the secondary stage, an integral political culture of a person, personality, is formed, which helps him to completely identify himself in the political space and make informed decisions.

It is at this stage that the attitude to politics as a social phenomenon is formed, a person determines the extent of his political participation and the form of political behavior. The process under consideration is not the same for all people and societies, so there is a classification of types of political socialization. Distinguish the following: harmonic, hegemonic, pluralistic, conflict types. It should be noted that practically none of these types is manifested in a "pure form", a person is formed under the influence of each of them.