THE FIRST OPINION RESEARCH IN URUGUAY AND CHILE

In: Public opinion quarterly: journal of the American Association for Public Opinion Research, Band 22, Heft 3, S. 251-260

Abstract

Two of the most urbanized countries in Latin America, Uruguay and Chile are described. The pop's of both are primarily European, but immigration is of little current importance in Chile. The age composition & demographic evolution of Uruguay resemble that of Western Europe while high fertility remains in Chile. Mass communications in both countries are modem with Spanish as the common language. There is no adequate foundation of statistical information, & since distances are great & mail uncertain, these studies were limited to the Ur areas of Montevideo & Santiago de Chile. The study in Uruguay was done by l'Institut Frangais d'Opinion Publique to measure the degree of knowledge of UNESCO & act's toward it before & after its 1954 general assembly in Montevideo. A sample 500 R's was interviewed before & after the conference, with the sampling done by selecting a number of blocks in each district & selecting households & individuals within households randomly. The UNESCO conference did exert an influence on Montevideans & more sharply defined act's existed after the conference, L'Instituta received good field cooperation which led to the organization of l'Instituto Uruguayo de lo Opinion Publica. A similar method was used in the Chilean study at the request of the U of Chile & a newly created Instit of Soc Sci's. R's were asked for facts about themselves: geographic & family origins, educ, standard of living, etc, in addition to opinions on the general situation of the country, feelings about the present & future, etc. The results of the study suggest something about the formation of alt's in Chile within cliff SC's. 55% of the people in Santiago had not been born there mainly as a result of internal migration. In the total group 7% were unemployed as compared to 11% in the Wc. Studies of educ'al level show that 54% have had the equivalent of 6 yrs of educ or less, & this % would be higher outside of Santiago. While 16% of the workers had only a yr of schooling only about 4% of each of the liberal professions & employers, public employees, & private employees have this little. Several examples show variation of att's among SE & S-cul groups. At the time of the study 86% of R's expressed confidence in the future while 18.3% expressed pessimism; but the liberal professions had more optimists (15%) & the workers more pessimists (25%). Confidence was more widespread among the young & the men. The weakest groups in the society, women, older people, workers, those with one yr of schooling or less, were all attracted by Argentina while mistrust of Argentina became more evident as one went up the soc ladder. Differences in the psychol of groups is attributed to the effects of urbanization. But the groups form a continuum rather than disparate entities. The development of either sharp class consciousness or class att's which are submerged in the national problems is seen as one of the problems faced by countries undergoing modernization. J. D. Twight.