Education and Change in American Opinions on a Woman for President

In: Public opinion quarterly: journal of the American Association for Public Opinion Research, Band 42, Heft 2, S. 171-182

Abstract

During the early 1970s, the increase in willingness of Americans to vote for a woman for president was directly related to education, & contrasts with the inverse relationship between education & increases in willingness to vote for a black for president. The contrast indicates that on some issues, the relationship between education & "enlightened" opinions is variable, & characterizes mainly the middle stages of such issues' life histories. The strengthening relationship between education & "enlightened" opinion about women was interpreted as reflecting the attention of the better-educated strata to the mass media's increased coverage of women-related topics in the 1970s. Public opinion data on the willingness to elect a woman president were gathered from the American Instit of PO surveys for 1967, 1969, & 1971, & from the National Opinion Research Center surveys for 1972, 1974, & 1976. The Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature was used as an indication of mass media content; articles pertaining to women's rights & the Womens' Liberation Movement were catalogued for the years 1965 through 1976. It was found that growing media coverage of women's issues corresponded with greater public willingness to accept a woman as a presidential candidate. It is felt that acceptance of this issue is related not only to broad-mindedness & liberalism, but also to a growing awareness of changes in norms that have been legitimized by laws & court decisions. It is also expected that, over time, the education-relatedness of this issue will decrease as these legitimized attitudes "trickle down" to the less educated. 3 Tables. Modified Author Conclusions.