Exploring the effect of social and political cleavages on youth political participation

Abstract

This article studies the effect of social and political cleavages on the political participation of young people in different modalities of political engagement. Therefore, we tested hypotheses that [H1] social cleavages have effects on the political participation of young people, that [H1a] young women participate more than young men, and that [H2] political cleavages have no effects on the political participation of young people. The data are from a data bank from a survey applied by NUPESAL (UFRGS) to students at the secondary school level in Porto Alegre. The figures partially and/or fully confirm the hypotheses, denoting a difference between the determinants of youth participation according to the modalities tested, with emphasis on the impact of gender on social cleavage and the process of socialization in the impressive years, raising aspects for the continuity of research on this topic in Brazil.