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The concept of symbolic racism was originally proposed 30 years ago. Much research has been done and the society itself has changed, yet many of the original items measuring symbolic racism remain in use. The primary objective of this paper is to present and evaluate an updated scale of symbolic racism. The scale proves to be reliable and internally coherent. It has discriminant validity, being distinctively different from both older forms of racial attitudes and political conservatism, although with a base in both. It has predictive validity, explaining whites' racial policy preferences considerably better than do traditional racial attitudes or political predispositions. Evidence is presented of its usefulness for both college student and general adult population samples, as well as for minority populations. Data using this scale contradict several critiques of the symbolic racism construct (most of which are speculative rather than based on new data) concerning the consistency of its conceptualization and measurement, the coherence of the symbolic racism belief system, possible artifacts in its influence over whites' racial policy preferences (due to content overlap between the measures of independent and dependent variables), and its differentiation from nonracial conservatism and old‐fashioned racism.

We propose that (1) the preadult socialization of longstanding, stable predispositions is catalyzed by exogenous political events; (2) such events socialize attitudes selectively, only in the specific domains they make salient; and so (3) longstanding predispositions tend to be socialized episodically rather than incrementally. This theory is applied to the socialization of partisanship during a presidential campaign, examining gains in information, affective expression, and attitude crystallization. Adolescents (aged 10 to 17) and their parents were interviewed in a three-wave panel study, at the beginning of a presidential campaign, at the end, and a year later. The campaign induced substantial preadult socialization gains regarding attitude objects central to the campaign (candidates and parties), particularly in the stability of preadults' partisanship. There were few gains in attitude domains peripheral to the campaign or during the postcampaign period. These findings suggest that periodic political events catalyze preadult socialization, generating predispositions that persist into later life stages.

We propose that (1) the preadult socialization of longstanding, stable predispositions is catalyzed by exogenous political events; (2) such events socialize attitudes selectively, only in the specific domains they make salient; and so (3) longstanding predispositions tend to be socialized episodically rather than incrementally. This theory is applied to the socialization of partisanship during a presidential campaign, examining gains in information, affective expression, and attitude crystallization. Adolescents (aged 10 to 17) and their parents were interviewed in a three-wave panel study, at the beginning of a presidential campaign, at the end, and a year later. The campaign induced substantial preadult socialization gains regarding attitude objects central to the campaign (candidates and parties), particularly in the stability of preadults' partisanship. There were few gains in attitude domains peripheral to the campaign or during the postcampaign period. These findings suggest that periodic political events catalyze preadult socialization, generating predispositions that persist into later life stages. (American Political Science Review / FUB)

Bilingual education has become politicized. It is surrounded by controversy, the outcome of which may play a greater role in deciding its future as an educational program than its educational successes. To better understand this political debate and its possible outcome, the present article examines attitudes toward bilingual education among the Anglo majority, in terms of general support levels, the origins of support, and its future trajectory. We find that currently the majority feels moderately positive toward bilingual education. Opposition is greatest among those who have generally negative attitudes toward minority groups and immigrants and who oppose special favors for them and among those who oppose increased government spending and spending on foreign-language instruction. Anglos' actual personal experience with bilingual education plays only a minor role. Opposition is greater among the well informed, suggesting that opposition may increase further as the issue attains greater national visibility. Opposition is also likely to increase if bilingual education is presented as promoting linguistic and cultural maintenance among language-minority students rather than as a mechanism for teaching English.

Following the Los Angeles riot of 1965, a number of assumptions about the nature & extent of the Negro community's involvement in the riot were made; among them were: (1) the riot was participated in & viewed favorably by only a small fraction of the Negro community, (2) most Negroes viewed the riot as a purposeless, meaningless, senseless outburst of criminality, & (3) that Negroes generally believed that no benefit would result from the riot. Data bearing on these issues were obtained from interviews conducted with 3 randomly selected samples of R's in Los Ange! County in late 1965 & early 1966. The 1st sample was composed of 586 Negro residents of South Central Los Angeles (the riot area). The 2nd sample was of 586 whites living in 6 communities in Los Angeles County, half of which were racially integrated & half non-integrated, with high, medium & low SE levels. The 3rd sample was made up from 124 Negro R's, all of whom had been arrested during the riot. Project trained black interviewers were used in the riot zone, whites in the white communities. The principal findings were: (A) It is not correct that all but a small minority of Negro residents strongly disapproved of the riots, felt they were a meaningless & random outburst of violence, or felt deeply pessimistic about the probable effects of the riot on the welfare of Negroes. Actually, a large minority (about 33. 3(7o) approved of the rioting, most felt it had been a meaningful protest, & most were optimistic about its potential effects on their life situation. (B) A widespread 'riot ideology' appears to have developed in the Negro community following the riot, & to have spread to other Ur centers across the country. The causes of the riot were described in terms of genuine grievances held toward those who were attacked, eg, a history of friction, discrimination & econ exploitation with local merchants & police. Negroes saw the purpose of the riot as being, on the one hand, to call the attention of whites to Negro problems, & on the other, to express resentment against malefactors. The riot was expected to bring help to the Negro pop from whites, though major improvement in interracial personal relationships was not expected. (C) The major cleavage that developed after the riot was between the white & black pop's of Los Angeles, not between lawbreakers & law-abiders within the black pop. Whites were much readier to condemn the riot, to see only purposeless violence in it, & to foresee a gloomy future for race relations. Whites were also more likely to ascribe the riot to agitators & criminal impulse, & less likely to attribute it to geniune grievances. Modified AA.

We leverage the emerging multiracial population to reexamine prominent theories of the American color line. A Black exceptionalism hypothesis suggests that Black heritage will be more restrictive of biracials' social and political assimilation prospects than Asian or Latino heritage. Black exceptionalism better explains biracials' sorting into the racial hierarchy than does classic assimilation theory or a people‐of‐color hypothesis. In the American Community Survey, Black heritage dominates subjective racial self‐identification among biracial adults and identity assignments to children of interracial marriages. In the 2015 Pew Survey of Multiracials, Black‐White biracials' social identity, social networks, perceptions and experiences of discrimination, and political attitudes relevant to race resemble those of monoracial Blacks, whereas Latino‐Whites and Asian‐Whites are more similar to monoracial Whites than to their minority‐group counterparts. Results suggest that even in a more racially mixed future, Black Americans will continue to be uniquely situated behind a most impermeable color line.

Social scientists have long shown that self-interest rarely has a large effect on citizens' sociopolitical attitudes. Instead, Americans' opinions about public policy are driven more by symbolic predispositions. Yet those opinions about policy may just be cheap talk. When Americans are faced with costly behaviors that pit their interests against their values, perhaps self-interest will play a larger role. Post-Affordable Care Act (ACA) health insurance coverage provides an important test for self-interest and symbolic politics. Faced with costly decisions to pay fines or purchase insurance, did Americans put symbolic politics over material self-interests? Using a monthly tracking poll, we first show that symbolic attitudes overwhelm self-interest in shaping public opinion about health policy. Marshaling data from over one million respondents from Gallup's Tracking Poll, however, we show that both self-interest and symbolic predispositions are associated with decisions to purchase health insurance under the ACA.

The conventional wisdom is that racial prejudice remains largely stable through adulthood. However, very little is known about the development of contemporary racial attitudes like symbolic racism. The growing crystallization of symbolic racism through the lifespan is tested using two data sets that measure the stability, consistency, and predictive validity of symbolic racism in samples ranging in age from young adults to the elderly. The results provide evidence that the crystallization of symbolic racism generally takes on a curvilinear trajectory across the lifespan, showing that it is already largely crystallized by voting age, that it continues to crystallize still further through adulthood and that it begins to decline in coherence in late adulthood. The results generally provide evidence confirming early speculations of symbolic racism theorists concerning the crystallization of symbolic racism across the lifespan and are discussed in terms of different theoretical perspectives on the relationship between aging and attitudes more generally.

The persistence hypothesis holds that core political predispositions tend to be highly stable through the life span. Here, this is tested using data from a longitudinal study by Lewis M. Terman & Melita H. Oden (1959), in which the party identification & ideology of 1,272 US respondents were measured on four occasions, 1940-1977, from roughly age 30 to retirement age. These partisan attitudes were highly stable over this long period, yielding continuity coefficients of about .80 between each measurement (separated by at least l0 years), & .65 for the full 37-year span. Examination of the trajectories of individual attitudes reveals that the most common pattern was constancy across time. A substantial minority changed in small but consistent ways, but changes from one partisan side to the other were not very common. Surprisingly, early-life racial attitudes had a resurgent effect on partisan attitudes in the 1970s. There was evidence of increasing attitude crystallization through the life span, infusing core predispositions with increasing psychological strength over time. Limitations of the study include the high intelligence of thc respondents and the "steady state" of the party system through most of this period. 8 Tables, 1 Figure, 73 References. Adapted from the source document.