a community-active citizen and a teacher.
The process of political socialization was generally learned in an informal way. It began with typical community-oriented political activities: participation in local organizations. Active participation led to chairing various community organizations. This is political socialization at its essential starting point. The chairperson of a community organization, in order to be effective, must provide leadership that incorporates the qualities discussed in Section 1, above: planning, communication, motivation and knowledge of the system of the local organization are all necessary.
That form of community-based political socialization was simultaneously conjoined to a more formal political approach to issues, wherein this writer ran for elected office in the professional educational organization to which she belonged. Elected to local, state and national positions, the political skills needed to accomplish this required a more broad-based knowledge of process and system than individual personality-oriented community organizations had involved. Much needed skills were learned from participatory observation of professional politicians, working for legislative campaigns on the local and state level. Eventually, this writer occupied professional political positions herself: the state legislative contact person for the California Teachers Association (CTA), and the congressional contact person for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA).
These positions were rife with opportunity to observe political behavior in full swing. The nature of the writer's positions as contact person demanded full participation in the process. Access was the key to the position and, as Truman noted in The Government Process: "The first measure of influence . . . is access . . . the most important factor in establishing the legislative outcome" ("Interest Groups," p. 50). Consequently, this writer had to ...