Becoming active in the micro-politics of healthcare re-organisation: The identity work and political activation of doctors, nurses and managers.

The changing organisation and governance of healthcare work represents a persistent focus of micro-politics. Whilst there is a developed literature describing the micro-political struggles that occur amongst healthcare occupations, there is little understanding about how, when and why actors become politically aware and active. Framed by research on political activation and the concept of identity work, this paper reports on a narrative interview study with 65 people, specifically doctors, nurses and managers, working in the English healthcare system. The narratives show that healthcare workers become increasingly aware of and engaged in micro-political activities through incremental stages based on their accumulating experiences. These stages are opportunities for identity work as actors make sense of their experiences of micro-politics, their occupational affiliations and their evolving sense of self. This identity work is shaped by actors' changing views about the morality of playing politics, the emotional implications of their engagement, and their deepening political commitments. The study shows that political socialisation and activation can vary between occupations and rather than assuming political affiliations are given or acquired the papers highlights the reflective agency of healthcare actors.

Local Characteristics Shape the Intended Political Behaviours of Adolescents.

Among the different factors that predict political participation, the characteristics of the local community are often described. The types and the intensity of political participation differ in urban and rural communities. The local community provides social and cultural resources for political participation and at the same time acts as a driver of political socialisation. The political attitudes of adolescents differ depending on the characteristics of the communities in which they live, i.e. the local context of their political socialisation. This paper describes the context of the political socialisation of adolescents in the German federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) in terms of geographical differences in socioeconomic, sociostructural, and sociocultural characteristics. The approach uses public databases to construct indicators that describe administrative districts in terms of their degree of urbanisation, degree of aggregated individual wealth, and variety of opportunity. These indicators were merged with the NRW subset of the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS 2016), which comprises N = 1451 students in N = 59 schools. Neither the degree of urbanisation nor the degree of aggregated individual wealth was suitable for explaining differences in the intended political behaviour of secondary school students in the 8th grade in NRW. However, the higher the variety of opportunity in a certain district, the less frequently students intend to participate in elections as adults. Also, the higher the measure, the more frequently students intend to participate in illegal protest activities. Apparently certain local environments mobilise intentions to participate in protest activities and suppress more conventional political activities.

Tackling inequalities in political socialisation: A systematic analysis of access to and mitigation effects of learning citizenship at school.

This article tackles the issue of social inequalities in voting and identifies how and when differences in learning political engagement are influenced by social background in the school environment between the ages of 11-16 in England. Using Latent Growth Curve Modelling and Regression Analysis on the Citizenship Education Longitudinal (CELS) data this research identifies two elements that influence the political socialisation process: access to political learning and effectiveness in the form of learning in reducing inequalities in political engagement. The results show that there is unequal access by social background to learning political engagement through political activities in school and through an open classroom climate for discussion. However, there is equal access by social background to Citizenship Education in schools and this method of learning political engagement is effective at the age of 15-16 in reducing inequalities in political engagement.