Families' Values
How Parents, Siblings, and Children Affect Political Attitudes
R. Urbatsch
Reviews and Awards
"Though acknowledging that the questions raised in his book must remain unsettled, Urbatsch (Iowa State Univ.) explores the influence of family structure, including birth order, gender of siblings, predominance of male or female children, and the careers of mothers, on political attitudes. Families' Values offers a useful exploratory analysis of correlations found within survey research data between family structure and political attitudes." - R. J. Gelm, University of La Verne, CHOICE
"Of all the institutions political scientists study, the home often gets short shrift. And yet it is where we form our most intimate relationships that, in turn, shape our worldview. It makes sense that families are the seedbeds of one's political perspective. In this book, R. Urbatsch makes the case that families matter, by moving from bromide to careful analysis to show us how, when, and why the home affects political attitudes." - David E. Campbell, Professor of Political Science, University of Notre Dame
"Families' Values is a lucidly-written, intriguing demonstration of how the structure and composition of families can affect people's political attitudes in their roles as parents and as siblings. By going beyond traditional approaches and with the use of national survey data, the book documents several illuminating examples and opens up a number of possibilities for enriching our understanding of familial influences." - Kent Jennings, Professor, University of California, Santa Barbara, and Professor Emeritus, University of Michigan
"Past research on the role of families in political socialization has focused primarily on the transmission of partisanship from parents to offspring. This research breaks new ground in looking at a variety of other, subtler family influences, in a highly innovative, creative, out-of-the-box mode. We learn about stay-at-home-moms, siblings, birth order, and mother-father differences. A definite step ahead." - David O. Sears, Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Political Science, UCLA
