Kabataang, Pilipino, hinog na ba para sa mundo ng pulitika?: A quantitative study on the political maturity of Filipino youth

• Main Authors: Moreno, Jose Miguel Valmoria, Paz, Justine Serafico, Uy, Bryan Joseph Go
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2013
• Subjects: Youth > Political activity > Philippines; Political participation > Philippines; Psychology
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_bachelors/11359
• Institution: De La Salle University

Since there was no existing political maturity framework and scale available in the literature, both foreign-referenced and in the Philippines, the researchers underwent two phases in this study. Phase one is the conceptualization of a political maturity framework and scale consisting of three main components - political awareness, political interest and political involvement. For phase two, the study utilized a descriptive-comparative method as its primary research design. This study aimed to describe the political maturity levels of the Filipino youth and identify possible differences across thier profile characteristics. These profile chacracterisitsc were gender, academic institution, voter eligibilty, voter registration, voter classification and socio-economic status. The study involved 800 respondents coming from state-owned and private universities. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, t-test independent and one-way ANOVA. The results indicated that Filipino youth seem to have moderate levels of overall political maturity. As for the components, it was concluded that these students have high levels of poitical awareness, and moderate levels of poltical interest and political involvement. Further results suggested that the following groups reported higher scores compared to their counterparts: females, state-owned university students, students who are ineligible to vote, registered voters, regular voters and youth of relatively lower socio-economic status. Based on the findings, it is evident that the political maturity levels of today's Filipino youths seem to have increased with social media as a possible major factor influencing their awareness, interest and involvement. Future avenues for research on the topic are discussed.