Examples Of Political Socialization

In class, we learned about and discussed a few examples of political socialization which according to Herb Asher, the author of “Polling and the Public”, is “the process by which people learn to adopt the norms, values, attitudes, and behaviors accepted and practiced by the ongoing system”. Now, I can think of a myriad of examples of how all members of society have experienced political socialization in their lives, but instead I am going to discuss one topic that has greatly impacted my family and millions of other individuals living in the United States- Immigration. You can almost hear the voice of an old Texan man saying “dag gommit” as he reads an article about immigration in the newspaper. Indeed, the very thought of immigration seems to strike a negative chord with many citizens of the United States, the question I have is “why?” Why do people continue to show disdain towards immigrants even though the United States of America is considered by many to be a ‘melting pot’ of races, religions, and

In this present day and age just about anything has the power of influencing peoples’ thoughts and opinion. Television, the internet, newspaper- they are all capable of influencing a person’s way of thinking, however, the most influential factor at play in any scenario such as this one is none other than the people. One can see the typical human as being a sponge, soaking up all the information, opinions, and thoughts in the general vicinity. When that human lives in a home or an area surrounded by individuals each sharing the same opinion towards a topic, then it usually results in him or her developing the same opinion. In this case, each and every individual constituting the 71% of Republicans questioned in the poll by Rasmussen was a sponge. Sadly, this opinion towards immigrants, or anyone not born in the United States or Europe for that matter, is not the only negative opinion shared by much of the Republican