Political Self-Efficacy Development among Minority Youth: The Role of Socialization Agents and Participatory Practices

Political self-efficacy, namely perceptions about how well one can understand and influence politics, is often suggested to be one of the most important determinants of political participation. The grounds of it are laid during childhood and adolescence through social learning processes. This paper focuses on political efficacy development among minority youth and aims to find out whether the minority status has an impact on which socialization agents play the most important role in political self-efficacy development compared to majority youth. The role of different school and classroom practices is also of a special interest. The empirical evidence is drawn from Finland by comparing youth belonging to the Swedish-speaking minority and the Finnish-speaking majority – two groups which are equal by the law, and similar in most ways, but differ when it comes to for example electoral participation and social capital. The data consists of a survey conducted among approximately 1,000 Swedish-speaking and 3,000 Finnish-speaking 15- to 16-year-olds, who are about to complete the tenth and final year of their common compulsory education. They study according to the same curriculum but in segregated schools, which allows comparison between school and classroom practices. The data is collected in about 40 municipalities, in which the proportion of the Swedish-speaking varies from less than 0.5% to about 90%. The results of the study will deepen our understanding of how belonging to a minority affects the political self-efficacy development. In addition, they will show whether there are differences between the segregated educational paths despite the common curriculum.