Orientations toward Conventional and Unconventional Participation among West German Youth

Abstract

The transmission-reproduction perspective emphasizes the learning of political orientation through hierarchical (usually institutional and conventional) processes. A voluntaristic perspective calls attention to the individual's ability to choose reference groups and modes of participation (often unconventional and noninstitutional) and has the empirical advantage in focusing on pluralistic influences in politicization. This analysis employs a large combined data base on West German youth (n = 2,500-3,000) that allows logit analysis of the internal differentiation by age, sex, and education in their orientations toward such pluralistic reference groups and political tactics. There are differences among young males and females that appear to be both developmental (related to age and sex) and situational (related to education). Younger, less educated males (15-17 years of age) are the most conservative of all age or sex groups. Older male youth show a stronger orientation toward conventional electoral participation than do females (who remain more unconventional), though by their 20s the males lag behind the females, whose progressive (left-liberal) advantage is less than for their younger counterparts. Overall young males show signs of a trend from conservatism to actionism to conventionalism, while females show a consistent progressive and unconventional advantage in all age groups. A concluding section reflects on the possible meaning of these findings for contemporary political styles among German youth.

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