This project will extend the Youth/Parent Political Socialization Study, a national survey of high school seniors and their parents that began in 1965 and was successfully repeated in 1973 and 1982. The fourth wave will focus on the original youth sample, now nearing age 50. Interviews will also be conducted with parents and offspring ultimately yielding a three generational data set measuring political attitudes and behaviors of Americans. The fourth wave will gauge long-term levels of persistence and change in political orientations. With the respondents having undergone important life course transitions -- marital instability, parenthood, aging children and aging parents, occupational changes and career advancement -- the study offers a unique opportunity to evaluate the implications of these transitions for political continuity and change. It also offers the opportunity to examine the short and long run attitudinal and behavioral consequences of major socio-political events bracketed by 1965 and 1997 and to investigate the individual level dynamics of major trends in political attitudes and behaviors over this period. A second major aim of the study is to use the parent-child pairs, the respondent-spouse pairs and other family combinations that are imbedded in the design to trace the dynamics of socialization and interaction within the family.
