The Adolescent Unbound: Unintentional Influence of Curricula on Ideological Conflict Seeking

Abstract

Conflict seeking is celebrated in advocacy of civil disobedience as a commitment of youth to transcendent principles that compel activism. Conflict avoidance, however, is far more prevalent as an explanatory theme in political socialization research. Nevertheless, it is possible to imagine undercurrents of defiance in the seemingly controlled and disciplinary environments of the home and the classroom. We propose that high schools and families—as overlapping spheres of interpersonal political communication—can engender ideological conflict seeking during election campaigns as activity conducive to moral-political identity development. Ideological conflict seeking was modeled as inclination to openly disagree, which fosters support for confrontational activism. Evidence was obtained from multiple interviews of student-parent dyads across two election cycles in Arizona, Colorado, and Florida. In validating a theoretical model confined to the ordinary political communication that occurs in classrooms and households, we highlight ideological conflict seeking as a focal concept deserving a more explicit role in the theory of civic identity development.

Keywords:

• political socialization
• political communication
• civic development
• deliberation
• political discussion
• activism
• protesting
• conflict avoidance
• ideological conflict seeking
• civic identity
• civic education

This article is derived from research made possible with support from the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement and from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

Notes

1. We considered hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) to document differential patterns of influence in the three states, but diagnostic tests failed to detect significant effects.

2. We coded “neither” and “not sure” as 1 for moderate ID (0, 1). This introduces error if such responses represent lack of interest as opposed to strongly considered albeit moderate views.

3. Students answered on a 1 (not important) to 5 (very important) scale: “How important is it to listen to people when you already know that you disagree with them?” (M = 3.11, SD = 1.28).

4. A working paper is available upon request from the first author.