New Book Recommendation: Why Children Follow Rules

Each week recent purchases are placed on the new book displays inside the library, and eBooks are made immediately available to use. You can view and subscribe to the New Library Books list online. For instructions on how to borrow an eBook by downloading it; check out our eBook LibGuide. Some eBooks require logging in with your JCU username and password; additional software will need to be installed to download books to a digital bookshelf. Most eBooks can be read online without downloading extra software.

An eBook title of interest is: Why children follow rules: Legal socialization and the development of legitimacy by Tom R. Tyler and Rick Trinker.

An extract from the book abstract states:

Legal socialization is the process by which children and adolescents acquire their law-related values. Such values, in particular legitimacy, underlie the ability and willingness to consent to laws and defer to legal authorities and make legitimacy-based legal systems possible. In their absence people relate to the law as coercion and respond to rewards and punishments. By age eighteen a person’s orientation toward law is largely established, yet recent legal scholarship has largely ignored this early period in favor of studying adults and their relationship to the law. This volume focuses upon socialization and outlines what is known about legal socialization in the family, in schools, and through contacts with the juvenile justice system. Our review of the literature indicates that there are ways to socialize that build legitimacy. These are linked to three issues: how decisions are made, how people are treated, and whether authorities respect the boundaries of their authority. Despite evidence that legitimacy can be socialized, views about the best way to exercise authority are highly contested in America today in families, schools, and within the juvenile justice system. In each case pressures toward coercion are strong. This volume argues for the virtues of a consent-based approach and for utilizing socialization practices that promote such a model.

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