The Effects of Political Socialization Programmes: The Youth Parliament Experience in Brazil

Independent Variables

School Year

A categorical variable was created where: 1=1st year student; 2=2nd year student; and 3=3rd year student.

Other Civic Education Programmes

The questions were: “Do you currently participate, or have ever participated in the Model UN?,” “Do you currently participate, or have ever participated in the Diplomatic Conference?” and “Do you currently participate, or have ever participated in any other project geared towards the development of political skills?” A new variable was created from the responses to indicate whether the youngster had taken part in any political skills training programme. The values were as follows: 0=has not taken part in any of these programmes; and 1=has taken part in one or more of these programmes.

Study Groups

To the question: “Do you currently participate, or have ever participated in a study group about politics?” the following values were given: 0=no; and 1=yes.

Parents’ Education

A construct was developed using factor analysis by principal axis factoring, so as to obtain only one variable for the parents’ general education level. The two original variables were measured in terms of the father and mother’s complete or incomplete education degrees. In order to turn them into continuous variables, the Bills and Haller’s strategy (1984) was adopted, and the following values were assigned to years of schooling: 0 (never went to school), 2 (1st to 4th grade of elementary school – incomplete), 4 (1st to 4th grade of elementary – complete), 6 (5th to 8th grade of elementary – incomplete), 8 (5th to 8th grade of elementary – complete), 9.5 (1st to 3rd year of secondary education – incomplete), 11 (1st to 3rd year of secondary education – complete), 13 (undergraduate course – incomplete), 15 (undergraduate course – complete), 16 (graduate course – incomplete) and 17 (graduate course – complete).

Parents’ Political Participation

As for the parents’ political participation: a construct was created through exploratory factor analysis using the principal axis factoring method, thus aggregating the political participation of the respondent’s father and mother. The indices of political participation of the father and mother were operationalized by counting the number of associations, political parties and trade unions in which the respondents’ parents were involved.

School Type

The categories were defined as follows: public school, military public school, middle class private school, and elite private school. Binary variables were created for the four categories. The criteria used to classify schools as elite or middle class were their monthly tuition fees and geographical location. No middle class school charged more than R$ 520 during the 1st and 2nd years of secondary education, whereas the monthly tuition fees of elite schools varied between R$ 642 and R$ 738. Also, in addition to being widely regarded as “traditional,” all elite schools lie in the most expensive region of Belo Horizonte (the south zone) while middle class schools are located in less upscale areas of the city.

Political Efficacy

The following statement was presented to the respondent: “Sometimes politics and government seem to be so complicated that a person like you cannot really understand what is going on.” The answers were given according to a five-point Likert scale which offered the following alternatives: strongly agree, somewhat agree, neither agree nor disagree, partially disagree, and totally disagree. A binary variable was created by aggregating the two pairs at each end, so that the new categories conveyed the totality of attitudes possible in one of two directions (agree or disagree).

Exposure to Information in the Media

The respondent was asked how often he thought he was exposed to political information in the media, more specifically: a) on TV and radio; b) in print newspapers and magazines; and c) on the internet. A scale was provided for each one of these three types, according to the degree of exposure felt by the respondent (0=never; 1=rarely; 2=a few times per month; 3=several times a week; 4=daily). The index of exposure to the media equals the sum of the responses to the three questions, so as to constitute a continuous variable.

Dependent Variables

With the exception of “membership in associations” and “participation in voluntary work at school,” the dependent variables were operationalised by subtracting the value they had obtained in the second round from their value in the first round, thus allowing the effects of the treatment to be estimated.

Political Knowledge

Knowledge of Acronyms

The respondent was asked the meaning of the following acronyms: TRE (Regional Electoral Court), ONU (United Nations), UNE (National Union of Students), and MST (Landless Rural Workers’ Movement). The answers were open-ended and coded a posteriori into three response levels (2=substantially correct; 1=correct regarding the subject; 0=error or non-response). The index was constructed using exploratory factor analysis by principal axis factoring, with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.597. Eight of the 351 cases offered no answers and were given value 0 (on a scale of –2 to +2).

Highlight

Regarding the meaning of this concept, the interviewee was given the following options: “The ‘highlight’ is one of the procedures that compose the decision-making process in the Legislature. A proposal is ‘highlighted’: 1) When there is the intention of expressing full support for its content; 2) When the topic discussed has been approached only superficially; 3) With a view to promoting some alteration or suppression; 4) So it can be voted on in its entirety; 5) Do not know.” From these options a binary variable was created where 3=1, and all the others=0.

The Child and Adolescent Statute

In the second round of the survey, the following question was asked: “The Child and Adolescent Statute is a piece of legislation that was approved by: 1) the National Congress; 2) The Legislative Assembly of the State of Minas Gerais; 3) the Supreme Court of Justice; 4) the National Council for the Rights of Children and Adolescents; or 5) Do not know.” A binary variable was thus created where the correct answer (the National Congress)=1 and all the other alternatives=0.

Names of Members of the Legislative Assembly

The question was: “Would you know the name of any member of the Legislative Assembly of the State of Minas Gerais?.” The question was repeated until the interviewee could not name any further members. Citing the full name of a member of Parliament was assigned two points, and one point given for an incomplete name. The points were added up, and thus an index was created.

Knowledge of ALMG Events

We asked the interviewee the following question: “The Legislative Assembly of the State of Minas Gerais offers the Mineiro population several possibilities for participation. Can you name some of these possibilities?.” If there were no spontaneous answers, the participant was asked whether he knew the meaning of: 1) legislative seminars; b) technical forums; c) public hearings; and d) commissions for people’s participation. The variable was then built from the spontaneous and forced answers. Each spontaneous response was assigned two points, and each forced response was assigned one point; they were then added up to create a scale.

Motivation

Interest in Politics

We asked the interviewee how interested in politics he was. The question comprised four response options: not at all interested (0); a little interested (1); interested (2); and very interested (3).

Political Participation

Participation in Voluntary Work at School

The original question was: “Considering this year only, i.e. 2008, were you or are you involved in any voluntary work organized by the school?” A binary variable was created where no=0, and yes=1.

Membership in Associations

This question was asked in the second round of the survey: “Here is a list of associations or groups. I would like to know if you are currently a member of, associated to, or participate regularly in any of them.” The following list of activities was presented to the interviewee: a) any community association, local residents’ or neighborhood society; b) any association involved in minority rights advocacy, such as the Black, indigenous, feminist or freedom of sexual orientation movements; c) any association engaged with social issues such as health, education, housing, environment, culture; d) unions; and e) participatory budget processes. Due to the low participation of youngsters in civil society associations, the five points on the membership-in-associations scale was turned into a binary variable, to indicate whether the youth had any associative links at all.

Political Actions

We used a set of variables referring to individual participation in specific political activities. The following activities were included: to attend neighborhood or community meetings; to sign a manifesto or petition; to take part in demonstrations or marches; and to participate in strikes. The same weight was attributed to each of the four activities, turning this into a variable that had three categories: 1) has not participated in any action; 2) has participated in one action; and 3) has participated in two or more actions.

Political Attitudes

Trust in the City Council

The question in the survey was: “In relation to the City Council, you: 1) never trust them; 2) trust them sometimes; 3) trust them most of the time; or 4) always trust them?.” A binary variable was created where “never trusts” and “trusts sometimes”=0, while “trusts most of the time” and “always trust”=1.

Trust in the National House of Representatives

We asked the interviewee: “In relation to the National Congress, you: 1) never trust them; 2) trust them sometimes; 3) trust them most of the time; or 4) always trust them?.” A binary variable was created where “never trusts” and “trusts sometimes”=0, while “trusts most of the time” and “always trust”=1.

Trust in the ALMG

We asked the interviewee: “In relation to the Legislative Assembly of the State of Minas Gerais (ALMG), you: 1) never trust them; 2) trust them sometimes; 3) trust them most of the time; or 4) always trust them?.” A binary variable was created where “never trusts” and “trusts sometimes”=0, while “trusts most of the time” and “always trust”=1.

Political Tolerance (Communists, Members of the Black Movement, and Atheists)

A battery of questions sought to capture the respondents’ tolerance in relation to certain social groups. The wording was as follows: “In many places there are groups of people with ideas that are different from those of the majority of the population. In your opinion, they...” (response categories showed three levels of tolerance, as follows: 0=“must abandon their ideas and accept those of the majority”; 1=“can keep their ideas but without permission to speak out about them in public”; 2=“can keep their ideas and talk about them in public”). The answers given in relation to communists, members of the black movement, and atheists were aggregated using the exploratory factor analysis by principal components method.