Author Description

Beginning with children in the five- and six-year-old range, this volume both maps and explores changing patterns of civic awareness that characterize the political world of the young child. It also tests alternative theories of how early political learning takes place, concentrating on the cognitive developmental theory associated with Jean Piaget and the social learning theory espoused by many behavioral scientests today. The data presented in the work were collected between 1974 and 1978, and provide the basis for comparisons with the classic studies of children and politics done by Fred I. Greenstein and David Easton nearly two decades ago. The volume offers many interesting observations on the recognition of political and conflictual symbols, the cognitive framework of a child's growing political awareness, and the discrete stages of this awareness.