Political Socialization in the Philippines: Learning about Democracy 233 reciprocity which encourages self-sacrice and in-group cooperation is also latent socialization to dominance hierarchies and conformity to the group. Critical thinking, questioning and challenging the status quo is hardly encouraged and could lead to negative outcomes. Medina has acknowledged, however, in the latest edition of her book (2015) that parenting attitudes and styles have changed over the years to be more lenient and accepting of children questioning and reasoning out. Back in 1976, Sicat already noted the changing values and behaviors of the youth, towards greater rebelliousness, as early as 1969-1970. Furthermore, more recent changes in family structures (due to absentee OFW parents, single parent families, nuclear rather than extended family arrangements) have also wrought many changes in the power structure and dynamics within the Filipino family, with possible implications for political socialization. Parental transmission of political values and beliefs has been established in several studies on political socialization in the United States (Sears & Brown, 2013). The data showed that this transmission worked most strongly for children with highly politicized parents with stable values, children who continued to live with their parents and who conversed with them on a regular basis about political matters. Party identication, for example, was something acquired very early from parents. (It should be noted, however, that in the Philippines, political party identication is weak and does not seem to have the same meaning as in the United States or other nations with a strong party system.) Nevertheless, direct political values transmission could still be expected in the typical hierarchical arrangements of the traditional Filipino family. We see this in the response of rst-time voters who, when asked how they will choose who to vote for in the next election, say they will ask and go with their parents' choices. The proliferation of political dynasties could also be traced to this type of political socialization where parents groom their children to take over the family (political) business. In a study on tolerance among Filipino preschoolers, Carlos (1996) noted the role of the family, particularly the parents, in teaching children about discrimination. Tolerance, the opposite of discrimination, may be deemed an important ingredient in democratic thinking. Carlos found that children learned discrimination through modeling a parent's behavior whereas others learned more directly through the statements of their parents. Even jokes about other ethnic groups (e.g., intsik, bombay, ita, moros) implicitly convey prejudiced attitudes but diminish their negativity, making children believe these negative pronouncements are acceptable. Parental lifestyles may also convey elitist political perspectives to impressionable children in their formative years. Thus, one should perhaps be wary of a political candidate who was raised in the family of the dictator. How much democratic perspective could one learn from a family living a super elitist lifestyle and a father "successfully" holding authoritarian rule for two decades?