Democratic values as basic values of children: An analysis of the correlation for children in primary school

The stability of democracies depends to a large extent on the development of democratic attitudes and values among their citizens (Easton, 1975). Childhood has emerged as an important phase in socialisation research (Döring, 2018). Although there are initial findings that democratic values and attitudes can already be observed in children, there is still a lack of empirical evidence in this regard (Abendschön, 2010). The research field of basic values has been researched more extensively in relation to childhood, but not with regard to a possible connection between basic values and democratic values. In order to further close this research gap, more than 400 children in third and fourth grade in North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany were asked about their basic values and their democratic values and attitudes. The basic values were recorded using the Picture-based Value Survey for Children (PBVS-C; Döring et al., 2010) based on Schwartz's (2012) value model. In the case of democratic values, the focus was placed on five dimensions: Preference for democratic decision-making, equality, freedom of expression, acceptance of rules and renunciation of violence. Two central questions are addressed with the present study: 1. To what extent can correlations between basic values and democratic values and attitudes already be found in children? 2. Are there any indications of explanations for possible differences between the children with regard to their preference for democratic values? The results indicate that children from the third grade onwards already have quite complex basic democratic values. They are already able to differentiate between different situations with regard to their evaluation of decision preferences. Furthermore, significant correlations can be identified between basic values and democratic values. In particular, the higher-order value dimensions "self-enhancement" and "self-transcendence" appear to play an important role in the preference for democratic values. Furthermore, there is a significant effect of the socioeconomic status. In addition, there are indications of possible influencing factors on children's democratic values. Both the person of the teacher and the opportunities for participation at class level seem to play an important role.