Poll: Middle school students and political beliefs

In My Humble Opinion
1

There’s currently a thread in the Pit entitled Liberal Tolerance on parade at a local middle school…. Part of the discussion in that thread concerns whether or not the negative responses that the girl received (due to her McCain t-shirt experiment) were an authentic reflection of attitudes held by liberal students, or if they were just further examples of typical middle-school assholery.

This has lead me to wonder about how many people developed anything like a coherent set of political beliefs by the age of 14–and if they did, whether or not they still hold those beliefs as adults.

So, my questions are:
a.) How would you characterize your current political beliefs? (liberal, conservative, moderate, libertarian, radical, etc.)

b.) Did you hold these same beliefs when you were attending middle school (i.e, around the age of 13 or 14 years old)?

c.) If you answered “no” to question b:

[ol]
[li]Did you espouse any political beliefs in middle school? If so, how would you characterize them?[/li][li]At what age did you first formulate the beliefs that you hold today?[/li][/ol]

d.) Please list your age, gender, and the location where you attended middle school (or an equivalent educational institution for 13 and 14 year olds).

My answers:

a.) Leftist, with a strong affinity towards anarcho-syndicalism.

b.) No.

c.) 1. I didn’t have any clear set of political beliefs in middle school, nor any real comprehension of politics at all–mainly just reflected my mom’s fairly moderate Democratic views. 2. My core beliefs really manifested when I was about 16, and gradually became more refined over the course of high school and early college years (from 17-20 years of age).

d.) 36, male, attended middle school in Panama City, Florida.

2

a.) Liberal

b.) Mostly, yes, except that I was rather aggressively anti-abortion in middle school, a position that I had quite definitely reversed by my late teens.

c.) N/A

d.) 32 / female / DC suburbs.

To answer another question that you didn’t ask, but that I think is relevant, both my parents and many of my teachers strongly encouraged the kids in their charge to be politically aware.

3

a) Liberal

b) Yes

c) n/a

d) 22, female, Philadelphia suburbs

I was raised in a liberal bubble (liberal elementary school, liberal church, liberal parents, etc.), so it’s not very surprising that I turned out like I did.

Edit: My sister’s in middle school now (the same one I went to), and she says most of her social studies class supported Obama.

4

a) far left.

b) I don’t think so. . .

c) 1. I think a very confused set of ideas half arrived at by parroting parents and teachers and such, and the other half arrived at by a drive to piss them off (so something like. . . disenfranchised working class conservative beliefs (a touch of racism, anti-gay beliefs, and probably prone to suggesting things like how we should bomb Libya into the 17th century and other ideas I’d now find deeply embarrassing), all the while identifying as anarchist or communist or John-Birchy ultraconservative, depending on the day of week)
c2) Core beliefs developed in 10th and 11th grade and became more much better understood in college, forever afterwards increasingly less doctrinaire and nuanced, I think (work in progress).

d) 36, F, attended middle school in rural outer island Hawai’i

5

a. Liberal

b. Not really

c. All I really knew was that Republicans were “uncool.” This was because 1) my college-age brother thought so, and 2) my parents were Republicans. By age 14 or 15 I had developed my own interest in political history and was fascinated by the Kennedys in particular. My parents were baffled.

d. 30 / female / small town Wyoming

6

a. Liberal

b. No, not really

c. I was rather more conservative than I am now - I saw the world in much clearer shades of black and white than today. I’m still not terribly knowledgeable about politics, but my beliefs developed a lot during university. (I attended a famously lefty school.)

d. 24, female, grew up in southern Ontario

7

Liberal.

Some.

I was a 14 year old Afro wearing, poetry writing radical in a Catholic School uniform. I had posters of Huey P. Newton and Angela Davis on my bedroom wall. I was learning Swahili and taking karate so I’d be ready for the revolution, but then disco arrived and my new facination was in doing the Hustle.

Chick, 50, from Hollis, Queens, baby! (my school was in Fresh Meadows)

8

a.) How would you characterize your current political beliefs? (liberal, conservative, moderate, libertarian, radical, etc.)
Mixed. Socially libertarian, economically democrat, I guess; I think the government should not prohibit any behavior that is not harming someone else, but I think that pooling our economic resources to fund large scale social programs and redistribution of those resources as needed can be less wasteful than duplicating these same efforts on many similar small scale programs. Maybe I’m a socialist as the word is currently being bandied about in the USA.

b.) Did you hold these same beliefs when you were attending middle school (i.e, around the age of 13 or 14 years old)?
Yes. Back then they would have been articulated more like, “The government’s job is to help people, not control them when they’re not hurting anybody.”

d.) Please list your age, gender, and the location where you attended middle school (or an equivalent educational institution for 13 and 14 year olds).
33, Female, Illinois - the blue part

9

a.) How would you characterize your current political beliefs? (liberal, conservative, moderate, libertarian, radical, etc.)
Socially liberal with a libertarian streak. I don’t think that government should ban behavior that doesn’t harm anyone or some one else. I think that the War on Drugs is an expensive failure, and should be cut. Economically, I would say I am a conservative. I’m really uncomfortable with the bank bailouts although I can’t see an alternative since many of them are too big to fail.

b.) Did you hold these same beliefs when you were attending middle school (i.e, around the age of 13 or 14 years old)?

Not at all. I was conservative at that point. I’m still somewhat conservative in my personal life, I just don’t care what other people do so long as they don’t harm anyone.

c.) If you answered “no” to question b:

  1. Did you espouse any political beliefs in middle school? If so, how would you characterize them?
    My belief were fairly conservative. I was a Republican and tended to support most Republican beliefs. I was more conservative then my folks were by quite a bit.

  2. At what age did you first formulate the beliefs that you hold today?

Its been a sliding scale. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve examined what I believe and why I believe it. For me what changed is the realization that what may be right for me isn’t right for other people and that a free society shouldn’t dictate those things.
d.) Please list your age, gender, and the location where you attended middle school (or an equivalent educational institution for 13 and 14 year olds).

I’m 33, male and lived in Fairfax County, VA, a suburb of Washington, DC.

10

a) Heavily left-leaning, with a large pinch of (European) liberalism in the mix.

b & c) 13-14? I couldn’t have articulated it in those terms. I was forming strong opinions, beliefs and values, though, and had an upbringing which very much encouraged us to develop our own rather than adopt those of others.

d) 28, male, England.
Knowing a lot of children of this age range very well indeed, through work, I would suggest that it’s typical for them to be forming a set of personal values regarding social and personal issues, without necessarily attaching labels to them at this stage. If they do the latter, they are likely to be superficially adopted. As regular religious observance is the exception rather than the norm in Britain, the ideology* of specific faiths or denominations rarely feature, even if there might be an underlying element influenced by spiritual beliefs or by specific teachings.

  • Not an ideal word here, I know, but I couldn’t think of another way to phrase it succinctly. It’s probably betraying some of the particularly strong beliefs I developed at that age…
11

a) Liberal by US standards, centre-left in the UK. Very socially liberal in either. I’d like government to be effective, and am more concerned about that than I am about its size. Civil libertarian.

b) I was a lot further to the left - again, by European standards.

d) 36, Male, West Central Scotland

12

a. How would you characterize your current political beliefs? (liberal, conservative, moderate, libertarian, radical, etc.)

Pretty liberal

b. Did you hold these same beliefs when you were attending middle school (i.e, around the age of 13 or 14 years old)?

Definitely not.

**Did you espouse any political beliefs in middle school? If so, how would you characterize them? **

Quite a few. I was very socially conservative. Anti-abortion, anti-birth control, anti-gay marriage. I thought it was a damned shame that Intelligent Design wasn’t being taught in public schools, and that the liberal, non-Christian brigade had it in for us God-fearing folks. I also abhorred anything secular; I thought that most kinds of music and the majority of movies/TV shows were out to destroy America.

**At what age did you first formulate the beliefs that you hold today? **

When I was 15 years old, I started going to a public high school (which I was convinced would be the end of me). It turned out that once I actually gave some thought to my previously held ideals, I completely disagreed with them. It took me two years to do a complete 180-degree turn, and now I consider myself to be liberal.

d.) Please list your age, gender, and the location where you attended middle school (or an equivalent educational institution for 13 and 14 year olds).

20, female, Clearwater, Florida

13

A. I call myself independent, but I am Socially Liberal, with shades of Libertarian thrown in other places.
B. No.
C. No. If asked back then, I would call myself a Republican because I was born under Reagan. Obviously therefore, I was a Republican, just as I am a Cancer for being born in July.
-Around age 14 again, I would call myself a Republican, because my high school and junior high was pretty pro-Republican (I remember all the anti-Gore stuff going around in 1999- I think i was probably swept up in that and anti-Gore). But I didn’t know any of the politics or stances on abortion, homosexuality or such (Though I probably would have probably supported people’s rights to choose back then).
D. When I was around 17-18, my “friend” was telling me about the stupid socially liberal stances, and I realized I agreed with those policies. That’s when I became quite scared that perhaps I was a liberal, as most people weren’t. (Actually, I didn’t really care, though I never did admit my liberal tendancies in school- I always tended to go with the flow… but yes, all that time, I was an in the closet Liberal). I just happened to agree with the Conservative Economic policies- because hey- no more taxes sounds like a GREAT idea. The Homeless? They’re just lazy bastards, and I wouldn’t ever become one of those, so why should I bother to help them out? That old adage about "the student who called himself a liberal until the father asked him to lower his grades (A’s) to help raise up the C’s of his classmates really struck a cord with me back then, as my republican friends would all use that as the stressing point for why Conservatism was good. And I couldn’t disagree at the time, so I agreed. Also, I wasn’t a fan of Clinton Lying about the BJ. I was a pretty Morally righteous bastard back then, and figured that was the WORST thing a president could ever do.

I fully confirmed my non-republicanism in the months after 9-11, when various policies were undertaken by the Bush Administration, and I started to get a taste of the Religious Right. I really disliked Jerry Falwell, and others similar to him.

Male/23/Private School In SouthEast VA.

14

a) Liberal
b) yes, though I didn’t have a name for them
d) 41, female, Western New York (Casey Middle School!)

15

a) Gun-toting liberal
b) Socially I was very liberal, yes. I was still very politically naive, though (at 14 I wouldn’t have been able to identify my beliefs with any particular party or individual).
c) -
d) 27, female, Durango, Colorado and Grand Junction, Colorado.

16

a.) Moderate. I don’t like anyone very much.

b.) No.

c.) I didn’t have any political beliefs. I’m pretty sure I didn’t know the difference between the Dem and Rep parties or what censervative/liberal was. I knew people were scared of the Russians, but not really why, except Chernobyl (I was in 7th when that happened).

I suppose I gradually formed my political opinions near the end of high school and in college. I’ve mostly gotten crankier since then and have little faith that government will do anything very well.
d.) 35, female, attended junior high in the Central Coast area of California 1985-87.

17

a.) Moderate liberal.

b.) No.

c.)

  1. I was essentially a libertarian. I would have said “the government should stay out of our lives!” without much understanding of what that meant.
  2. Midway through high school, solidifying in college.
    d.) 26, male, public school in western New York State
18

1: liberal

2: yes, by default, because i am 14, albeit in high school

3: male, Maryland

also, slight hijack. You must remember that we Dopers are not reflective of the general populace. I know from experience that the only beliefs and thoughts on the part of most middle schoolers that could be considered “politically aware” are “Bush sucks! I hate Bush! !!! !!!” and “GO OBAMA! I LUURRRVEEE OBAMA!!!11111” (slight hyperbole)

19

Also, most middle schoolers (at least some of the ones I know) consider themselves “liberal” because they support Barack Obama, though they are horrified by the thought of even civil unions, much less gay marriage. If these people knew what Prop 8 was, I can say with quite a bit of confidence that they would wholeheartedly support it. Also, abortion. Whenever somebody my age asks me about my views on abortion, I say that I am solidly pro-choice. They most of the time turn out to be pro-life, which I have no problem with, but they are the really in-your-face type. As in “HOW DARE YOU SUPPORT THE MURDER OF AN INNOCENT LIFE YOU BABYKILLER!!! HOW WOULD YOU LIKE IT IF YOU HAD BEEN ABORTED???”

Just my two cents.

20

[a.) How would you characterize your current political beliefs? (liberal, conservative, moderate, libertarian, radical, etc.)

Liberal to libertarian

b.) Did you hold these same beliefs when you were attending middle school (i.e, around the age of 13 or 14 years old)?

No

**c.) If you answered “no” to question b: **

[ol]
[li]Did you espouse any political beliefs in middle school? If so, how would you characterize them?[/li]Not really

[li]At what age did you first formulate the beliefs that you hold today?[/li][/ol]
Have evolved from '60s radical, I’m much more moderate now

d.) Please list your age, gender, and the location where you attended middle school (or an equivalent educational institution for 13 and 14 year olds).

It was junior high, Kennedy was president, I was in California and then Oklahoma (OK at the time Kennedy was shot)