One school, one hundred parties: the multiplicity of political-economic positions among students in a quantitative study

Abstract

In the contemporary political debate, the claim that young Brazilians would be subjected to a process of ideological indoctrination that would result in homogeneity of their thinking is widely used. This text reflects on the conceptual basis of this assertion and studies the data from a broad empirical research project, the Youth and History in Mercosur, to test the effective foundations of this claim in the analysis of the political position of young people. Regarding the methodology, students' answers were used for economic and political statements that, translated into numerical scales and calculated for each case, generated a scatter plot, locating each student in quadrants that represents a political position composed between right and left wings (in the axis of economic values) and authoritarianism and democracy (in the axis of political values). The results indicate that there is a significant diversity of positions, marked by the lack of occupants of the authoritarian quadrants, as well as the absence of radicalized postures. It follows, therefore, that under these conditions and for this sample the indoctrination argument finds no empirical basis.