Suchergebnisse

An examination of the hypothesized inverse relationship between socioeconomic status (SES) & conservatism on a wide range of social issues. Focus is on the net effects of education, occupation, income, & class (owner, supervisor, or worker) on nine issues. Analysis of data from the 1980 General Social Survey (N = 1,468 respondents) suggests that the hypothesized relationship is absent for most dimensions of SES & most social issues. The most consistent exception to this finding is that liberalism on social issues tends to increase with education, though the relationship varies considerably from issue to issue. The lack of a consistent relationship reflects both the diversity of the social issues & the fuzziness of the social issue/economic issue distinction. 3 Tables, 1 Figure, 1 Appendix, 39 References. Modified AA

Data from the 1980 National Election Study are used to examine the claims that: (1) those voters who shifted to Ronald Reagan in 1980 (New Republicans) were drawn disproportionately from the lower to middle strata of the population; (2) they were social conservatives motivated by issues like abortion & the Equal Rights Amendment; & (3) they were more religious & alienated from the federal government than average. The results strongly suggest that all of these assertions are false & thus question the emergence of a neopopulist or Middle American Radical political constituency on the right wing of US politics. The findings also have implications for prominent theories about conservative political movements & about the changing nature of party politics in a postindustrial society. 8 Tables, 25 References. AA.

Governments are increasingly interested in estimating the prevalence of substance abuse with social indicators, largely because of the high cost of estimating prevalence with surveys of random samples of the population. With both the individual and county as the unit, we regress measures of the use of alcohol, marijuana, and other drugs on social indicators that fall into three categories: demographics, measures of social disorganization, and measures more directly related to the use of substances. The measures of explained variance are fairly low, but even more troubling is that the effects of several social indicators are in the "wrong" direction. Reliance on social indicator data to supplant survey estimates of the prevalence of substance abuse requires further validation, attention to sources of bias in the indicator data, and replication of the models over time.

Draws on an experiment conducted in four education centers for nontraditional & low-performing secondary students in greater Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN, in 1996 to determine whether adolescents are more honest about sensitive self-disclosure in computerized or paper-&-pencil self-administrated questionnaires. Subjects (Ss)(N = 368 adolescents, age 12+) answered items about drug use, sexual activity, criminal behavior, self-harm, family substance abuse, domestic violence, & sexual abuse/violence via either computer or paper. Analysis finds that Ss using paper reported more of most behaviors/circumstances than did those on computers. This effect was complicated by a distance effect for computer users: those sitting very close to other students made the fewest reports. It is concluded that the lack of privacy available in most computer laboratories may cause adolescent survey Ss to underreport sensitive information. 2 Tables, 21 References. E. Blackwell