Recent political socialization research focuses almost exclusively on the orientations of teenagers, even though the literature seems to agree on the assumption that politically relevant orientations and attitudes are acquired much earlier in the life span. The proposed paper argues that it is essential to look at the beginning of socialization processes within the youngest citizens if we want to shed further light on the processes underlying the development of democratic citizenship. Consequently the proposed paper wants to examine the influence of primary school institutions on children's political and democratic learning. After developing a conceptual framework of school impact on children's political learning, the paper will empirically analyse four important aspects of school life on children's political and democratic understanding in a comparative way: 1) teachers' orientations and classroom behavior, 2) class climate, 3) school climate and 4) content of civic education.
The empirical analyses draw on panel data of the German project “Learning to Live Democracy” funded by the German Science Foundation. The study includes data of about 750 children at the beginning and at the end of their first school year which were questioned with a specially developed standardized questionnaire, as well as the children’s parents and teachers. The findings can contribute to the ongoing discourse about a broadening of children’s political and civic rights and are meant to trigger a discussion about a re-orientation of civic education in primary school.
