The Effects of Political Socialization Programmes: The Youth Parliament Experience in Brazil

Abstract This article investigates the changes that civic education programmes produce in their participants, and offers an integrated view of the determinants as well as the resulting effect patterns. The main conclusions are: 1) values are more resistant to change than motivation, political knowledge, and attitudes towards political institutions; 2) cognitive gains and attitudinal changes are more likely to occur (and with greater intensity) when the object belongs to the programme’s environment; 3) the effects on political participation do not occur in the present, but the data indicates a tendency towards greater participation later in adult life; 4) the programme’s quality and the participant’s motivation stand out because, usually, they affect the influence of other factors. The object of this study is the Mineiro Youth Parliament in its 2008 edition. The research design follows the logic of quasi-experimental research [Campbell, D. and J. Stanley (1979) Delineamentos Experimentais e Quase-Experimentais de Pesquisa. São Paulo: EDUSP.]. In 2008, a non-random sample of 670 youngsters completed two rounds of interviews (335 before, and 335 after the programme); in each round, there were 167 programme participants and 168 non-participants.