Citizen Participation in America

学者们一直对谁参与和不参与感兴趣 在自愿的社会和政治活动中， 美国生活的一部分。 这项研究涉及这一主题的时候， 当代社会，当个人更加活跃， 他们所参与的活动已经大大扩展。 尽管如此 提高活动的有效性存在巨大差异， 某些群体- -穷人、少数民族、妇女、 移民-正在进入参与性制度。 中央 调查的重点是这些群体， 更好地了解谁的利益得到代表，谁的利益被忽视。 主要的社会和政治机构。 通过分析过程 一些公民变得活跃，而另一些则不活跃， 研究人员可以产生处理差距的实用知识 平等代表的民主理想与现实之间的差距 调查人员将进行一项精心制作的全面调查， 实证研究，其主要目的之一将是制定一个 参与美国生活的数据资源。 为了获得 政治活跃的受访者的代表性样本， 调查人员将进行电话筛选调查， 10分钟，15,000名受访者。 随后将 通过对2,000名受访者进行60分钟的面对面采访， 倾向于积极分子。 这项研究设计将使 研究人员筛选，采访，足够的少数民族和高度 积极参与者，以实现最大的信度和效度 结果 这项研究的结果将产生关于谁的重要发现。 参与政治活动，应该提供最多的 对美国政治行为的详细描述 调查还将产生一个更理论化和细致入微的 美国政治和志愿活动的图片。

Scholars have long been interested in who does and does not participate in the voluntary social and political activities that are a fundamental part of American life. This study attends to this topic at a time in contemporary society when individuals are more active and the ways in which they participate have expanded considerably. Despite this heightened activity vast disparities exist in the effectiveness with which certain groups - - the poor, racial and ethnic minorities, women, immigrants - - are entering the participatory system. Of central concern in this investigation is a focus on these groups in order to understand better whose interests are represented and whose ignored by the major social and political institutions. By analyzing the process by which some citizens become active while others do not, the researchers may generate practical knowledge for dealing with the gap between democratic ideals of equal representation and reality. The investigators will undertake a carefully crafted and comprehensive empirical study, one of the main purposes of which will be to develop a data resource on participation in American life. In order to obtain a representative sample of politically active respondents, the investigators will conduct a telephone screener survey of approximately ten minutes in length with 15,000 respondents. This will be followed by a sixty minute face-to-face interview with 2,000 respondents that is weighted toward activists. This research design will allow the researchers to screen for, and interview, enough minorities and highly active participators to achieve maximum reliability and validity of results. The output of this research will yield important findings about who participates in political activities and should provide the most detailed description of American political behavior ever available. The investigation will also produce a much more theoretical and nuanced picture of American political and voluntary activity.