Legal socialization: a study of norms and rules

Legal Socialization: A Study of Norms and Rules is the first comprehensive study of legal socialization. The book an analyses competing explanations of legal behaviour and attitudes drawn from cognitive developmental and social learn ing theories. It presents the results of a longitudinal, multi methodological study of the relationship between norms of behaviour and different rule enforcement practices in a university residential community. The authors use both qualitative and quantitative data to examine socializing factors in this natural setting, including a quasi-experimental manipulation of rule-enforcing conditions. The findings demonstrate that cognitive development is a better predictor of legal socialization effects than social learning, although neither predicts behaviours. The interaction of legal reasoning and rule enforcing conditions predicts both attitudes and behaviours, however. The findings also demonstrate the validity of a mediating model of legal socialization, in which legal reasoning and rule governed behaviours are related through the mediation of situational attitudes.