Distingushing Principles from Prejudice in American's Views on Racial Policy

种族问题上的冲突已成为美国社会的主要政治分歧之一，政府试图消除金融福利方面的种族差异仍然存在很大争议。公共汽车、肯定性的大学入学计划、将政府合同授予少数民族企业的努力、"先行午餐计划"和其他种族计划引起了激烈的反对。 为了更好地理解目前围绕政府在种族问题上的行动的公众争议，调查人员研究了广泛反对种族政策的两种相互竞争的解释。第一部分探讨了基于个人主义和支持有限政府的政治意识形态的反对派;第二部分探讨了种族偏见的作用。到目前为止，对于这两种解释中哪一种最能解释反对种族政策的原因，还没有达成共识。本项目的目标是比过去的研究更全面地解决这一争议。一个广泛的方法来解决这个问题，建立在过去的实证研究，但大大扩大了研究范围。两种分析方法融合，已在过去的研究中使用的解开种族态度的起源：横截面数据的多变量分析，和实验设计通常嵌入在一个调查工具。多元方法试图从统计上区分偏见和原则对种族政策偏好的影响，尽管这种方法的成功在很大程度上取决于用于评估一个概念的措施的概念地位。对种族态度的衡量特别有争议，破坏了对种族怨恨和"新"种族主义的其他衡量标准预测种族政策反对的证据的广泛接受。相比之下，实验方法通常会改变种族计划受益人的性质和素质，但可能会导致对关键发现的解释差异。研究人员依靠一种组合的实验-多变量方法来建立这两种方法的优势，在这种方法中，他们通过实验改变了一组种族计划，并使用多变量测试分析结果。这意味着，例如，只有当种族偏见的规模导致反对有利于黑人而不是白人或其他群体成员的计划时，他们才推断存在偏见反对。 目前的研究借鉴了这种结合实验-多变量的方法来评估支持一套不同的种族政策的背景下，两波全国电话调查的意识形态和偏见的基础。样本是根据对第一波中1 400名白色和400名黑人受访者的访谈得出的;将在第二波中对所有最初的受访者进行重新访谈。第一波数据收集将评估对一系列种族政策实验的反应，并包括一组利用各种意识形态原则的问题。第二波将侧重于为不同种族群体复制相同的政策实验，以提供强有力的受试者内数据，补充第一波政策实验的反应。 在实验中，他们操纵了一系列的政治原则，并检查了针对黑人、白人和其他群体成员的项目的支持情况。此外，它们还探讨了政治原则对所有目标群体的影响，以评估其各自的影响。 从更广泛的角度来看，这项研究将扩大政策制定者对种族政策态度的理解-这是当代社会中的一个潜在分裂因素，随着美国在未来几十年变得越来越多样化，这一因素可能会加深。在这项研究中，对各种各样的种族政策替代方案的探索将为获得美国人最多支持的种族政策提供清晰的见解。

Conflict over racial issues has become one of the major political cleavages in American society and government attempts to eradicate racial differences in financial well being remained highly controversial. Busing, affirmative college admission programs, efforts to award government contracts to minority-owned businesses, the Head Start lunch program, and other racial programs have aroused heated opposition. To better understand the public controversy that currently surrounds government action on racial matters, the investigators examine two competing explanations for broad opposition to racial policies. The first examines opposition grounded in political ideology that stems from individualism and support for limited government; the second explores the role of racial prejudice. There is no consensus, as yet, on which of these two explanations best accounts for opposition to racial policies. The goal in this project is to resolve this controversy more fully than has been accomplished by past research. A broad approach to the problem is developed that builds on past empirical studies, but widens the scope of research considerably. Two analytic methods are melded that have been used in past research to disentangle the origins of racial attitudes: multivariate analyses of cross-sectional data, and experimental designs typically embedded within a survey instrument. Multivariate methods attempt to statistically distinguish between the effects of prejudice and principles on racial policy preferences, although the success of the technique depends heavily on the conceptual status of the measures used to assess a concept. The measurement of racial attitudes has been especially controversial, undermining broad acceptance of evidence that racial resentment and other measures of the "new" racism predict racial policy opposition. In contrast, experimental methods have typically varied the nature and qualities of racial program beneficiaries, but can lead to differences in interpretation of key findings. The investigators build on the strengths of both approaches by relying on a combined experimental-multivariate approach in which they vary a set of racial programs experimentally and analyze the results using multivariate tests. This means, for example, that they infer the existence of prejudicial opposition only when scales of racial prejudice result in opposition to programs that benefit blacks but not whites or members of other groups. The current study draws on this combined experimental -multivariate approach to assess the ideological and prejudicial basis of support for a diverse set of racial polices within the context of a two-wave national telephone survey. The sample is based on interviews with 1,400 white and 400 black respondents in the first wave; re-interviews will be attempted with all initial respondents in the second wave. The first wave of data collection will assess reactions to a series of racial policy experiments and include a set of questions that tap various ideological principles. The second wave will focus on replication of the same policy experiments for different racial groups to provide powerful within-subjects data that will complement reactions to the policy experiments in wave 1. Within the experiments, they manipulate a series of political principles, and examine support for the programs when targeted at blacks, whites, and members of other groups. Moreover, they explore the impact of political principles across the full range of target groups to assess their respective effects. From a broader perspective, this research will extend policy makers' understanding of racial policy attitudes - a potentially divisive factor within contemporary society that may deepen as the United States becomes increasingly diverse over the next several decades. The exploration in this research of a broad variety of racial policy alternatives will provide clear insight into the kinds of racial policies that garner most support from Americans.