Youth political development: An introduction

Research on political socialization during the 1950s focused on early precu rsors of political attitudes and treated children as rather passive partici pants in the process. A second wave of research in the 1960s considered you th a force creating social change and held that the transition between adol escence and adulthood was a period uniquely suited to examining political i ssues. Developmental research during the past two decades has emphasized li felong plasticity and the importance of the sociohistorical contexts in whi ch children grow up. This change in views of development has occurred at a time when populations in all societies are becoming more diverse and when t here have been dramatic economic and sociopolitical upheavals throughout th e world. Thus there is a renewed importance for research on the political d evelopment of young people and the potential for examining this topic in in creasingly meaningful ways. This issue highlights a new generation of resea rch in this domain, paying particular attention to international and compar ative work and to those studies that bring afresh and developmental approac h.