The Interconnection between Political Competence and Political Values of Russian Schoolchildren

The generations are changing. Modern schoolchildren have different life and political values, as compared with the older people. Yet, it remains unclear whether those values are somehow connected with their competence gained at school. At the same time, political competence may influence the willingness to participate in politics, which is important for effective functioning of democracies. Reconstruction of political values of teenagers in a frame of their competence was set as the aim of this paper. The research hypothesis is that low level of political competence results in disinterest in politics of young generation. The youth express readiness for shifting of responsibility in decision-making process on adults. The sample includes 2610 schoolchildren (10-11 grades) from. 71 schools from 21 Russian regions. The data was obtained during two stages of the research. Firstly, the survey on political competence and political values was conducted. Secondly, 258 teenagers chosen randomly from 2610 participants were interviewed. The analysis showed that modern Russian schoolchildren are characterized by a low level of political competence. At the same time, they express a demand for qualitative social changes, but do not believe in the effectiveness of their own political participation. Adolescents express a desire to shift the responsibility of political decision-making to politicians. At the same time, no statistically significant relationship was found between political competence and political values. However, the study is limited and cannot be generalized to the entire population of Russian adolescents aged 15–18 years, since the study does not include college students and does not cover all regions.