Politics

10186 readers

286 users here now

In-depth political discussion from around the world; if it's a political happening, you can post it here.

Guidelines for submissions:

Where possible, post the original source of information.
- If there is a paywall, you can use alternative sources or provide an archive.today, 12ft.io, etc. link in the body.
Do not editorialize titles. Preserve the original title when possible; edits for clarity are fine.
Do not post ragebait or shock stories. These will be removed.
Do not post tabloid or blogspam stories. These will be removed.
Social media should be a source of last resort.

These guidelines will be enforced on a know-it-when-I-see-it basis.

Subcommunities on Beehaw:

Socialism

This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

235

High school boys are trending conservative (thehill.com)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

204 comments fedilink hide all child comments

While many believe young people are becoming more liberal, data shows that 12th grade boys are nearly twice as likely to identify as conservative compared to liberal. Around 25% of high school seniors identify as conservative while only 13% identify as liberal. In contrast, the share of 12th grade girls identifying as liberal has risen to 30%. Many factors may contribute to this trend, including the rhetoric of Donald Trump which appealed to disaffected young men, and the focus of progressive movements on issues of gender and racial equality which some young men perceive as a "matriarchy." However, most high school seniors claim no political identity, and many boys in high school do not actively discuss

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I understand that self identification is more convenient than a list of policy questions, but I kind of wonder how many of them count as conservative by the standards of twenty years ago, or even by the standards of people twenty years older than themselves

Do these conservative teenagers believe that gay people shouldn't be allowed to marry? That a war against Islam is a good idea? That wives should submit to their husbands?

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago

I had a young woman, maybe 17 last semester, turn in a paper --it was a 12 page research/argumentative paper about why gender complementarianism (ie woman and men have different, distinct roles with men at the top). She's a good student, a good writer, but literally she's heard this set of morals from the pulpit her whole life... So like... Yeah. I read another young man's paper where his takeaway from 12 Years a Slave was "wow, not all slave owners were abusive monsters--some were pretty kind and treated their slaves like family." The kids are as alright as the rest of us are.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

The conservative platform in the US doesn't exist. At this point, conservative is a bucket term for, "not progressive." Most conservatives are on the right, but not all. Most conservatives are Republican leaning, but not all. Most conservatives are opposed to socially progressive change (e.g. expanded LGBT rights) but not all.

Basically any policy position you could point to will fail to capture a significant number of modern conservatives.