ÄR POLITISKA DISKUSSIONER MELLAN KOMPISAR VÄGEN TILL ÖKAT VALDELTAGANDE BLAND UNGA? En studie om hur sociala nätverk medierar sambandet mellan gymnasieutbildning och beredskapen till att delta i valet 2022

Abstract

Voter turnout among first time voters is frequently discussed among researchers. Previous research shows differences in political participation among students from different types of education and there are many theories as to how education affect the levels of political participation. At the same time social networks and political discussions has been proven to have a significant effect on political participation. This study hypothesizes that political discussions within social networks mediate the connection between educational orientation and the preparedness to participate in the 2022 Swedish parliamentary election. Political discussions is used as a new trait to measure social networks which creates new operationalizations and contributes to the research area. A statistical research method is used to examine the hypothesis where new data is gathered with a quantitative survey from Swedish upper secondary school students. The results show a small difference in the preparedness to participate in the 2022 parliamentary election between students from different educational orientations which oppose previous research. Because of this, and due to low representation from students at vocational types of education is was not possible to draw conclusions regarding the support of the hypotesis. Although, political discussions within social networks show a more significant positive effect on the preparedness to participate in the upcoming parliamentary election than educational orientation. This result confirms previous research and thus shows that frequent political discussions between friends is important reach high levels of political participation among youths.