ABSTRACT
Socialization, an ambiguous concept Reflecting a shift in the interests of political theorists themselves (Guild and Palmer, p. 267), the development of political attitudes is more likely to be discussed nowadays by reference to the concept of political socialization than in more traditional terms of political education. From the United States in particular, there is a rapidly growing literature on political socialization (see additional reading). In some contexts, preference for the word 'socialization' appears to reflect nothing more than the jargon use of a trend word. Or the words 'education' and 'socialization' are used interchangeably, implying no distinction in meaning. For example, 'He [Plato] attributes the cyclical degeneration of politics to defects in political education; to failures in political socialization' (Dawson and Prewitt, p. 7; see also Newmann, p. 536). However, in other contexts, the preference for socialization over education is deliberate:
both philosophers and practising politicians as long ago as Plato-and possibly long before that-have devoted thought and effort to the question of how to bring about such (i.e., political) engagement. Such practitioners and philosophers however, did not call the training process political socialisation; rather they called it civic education, lessons in patriotism, training for citizenship, or character training. Every one of these terms indicates that political values and attitudes are acquired, not in-
tion pick out different technical approaches to learning, alternative methodologies, or is there a qualitative difference in these processes which makes it necessary to retain the notion of political or civic education in our vocabulary of child-rearing. The last sentence in the quotation seems to hold the key to such a qualitative difference: the concept of education requires something more than a process of learning norms, attitudes and skills without asking questions about them. We shall return to this point later.
