Basic Values Transform Political Interest into Diverse Political Values, Attitudes and Behaviors.

Since politically interested adolescents do not necessarily present humanistic, environmental and democratic values, this study addresses the hitherto ignored role that how these basic human values play in politically interested adolescents' political values, attitudes and behaviors. A cluster analysis of 857 Swedish upper-secondary students (50.8% girls, Mage = 16.62, SD = 0.71) identified politically interested adolescents who attached high levels of importance to others' welfare and politically interested adolescents who attached low levels of importance. They differed on most comparative measures: environmental values, inclusive attitudes towards immigrants, support of democratic principles, trust in social movements, and readiness to step in if something jeopardizes the welfare of others. The conclusion is that the value of attaching high importance to others' welfare or not transforms youth's political interest into diverse attitudes and behaviors. The cluster group of politically interested adolescents who attached low importance to others' welfare largely consisted of males.

Why Some Adolescents Are Open To Their Parents' Political Communication.

This study examines the conditions that make adolescents open to their parents' attempts at political socialization. Based on a reformulation of the perceptual accuracy argument, that parents' messages are filtered through correct perceptions of these messages by adolescents, the study suggests that adolescents who accurately recognize their parents' high political sophistication are particularly likely to attend to and be open to their parents' political communication. This proposition was tested using cluster analysis of a sample of 505 Swedish upper-secondary students and their parents (51% girls; Mage = 16.56, SD = 0.67). The analysis yielded two clusters where adolescents correctly identified (26%) and failed to correctly identify (22%) their parents' high political sophistication, and three clusters where both parents and adolescents reported low or medium parental political sophistication (10%, 11%, and 32%). In confirmation of the hypothesis, members of the cluster group of adolescents who correctly recognized their parents' high political sophistication were particularly aware of parents' political socialization attempts and receptive to parents' political communication. Moreover, these youth considered their parents' political views as important and, accordingly, seemed to perceive their parents as political role models.

How is civic engagement developed over time? Emerging answers from a multidisciplinary field.

Insights into the development of civic values, attitudes, knowledge, skills and behaviours are greatly demanded by adults worried about a seemingly steady decline in the societal interest of their offspring. Hence, the collection of studies in this special issue on civic engagement in adolescence is not only timely and enlightening, but it also has the potentials to contribute to research in different disciplines on various dimensions, mechanisms and normative models of civic engagement. The studies reveal some promising attempts to bring civil themes into the field of adolescent development. However, to overcome some conceptual, methodological and empirical shortcomings, future developmental studies in the area need to be substantially improved by considering cultural and institutional conditions, by focussing on processes across various everyday life contexts, by merging theories from different disciplinary fields, by conceptualizing adolescents as changeable subjects, and by delineating untested and unwarranted normative assumptions.