THE TEENAGE JOSNER AND H35- ORIENTATEONS TQWARD PUBLIC AFFAKRS: A YES? 9? TWO MULTEPLE GROUP MEMBER$HW HY’PGTHESES Thai: for the Beam «:6 Ph. D. MICHKGAN STATE UNIVERSITY Haienan Sonnenburg Lewis 1962 w .k, x A! This is to certify that the thesis entitled The Teenage Joiner and his Orientations Toward Public Affairs: A Test of Two Multiple Group Member- ship Hypotheses presented by Helenan Sonnenbu rg Lewis has been accepted towards fulfillment of the requirements for Ph. D. degree inPOlitiCal SCienCG EM 2/ng Major professor Date MaV 15. 1962 4 LIBRARY Michigan State University THE TEENAGE JOINER AND HIS ORIENTATIONS TOWARD PUBLIC AFFAIRS: A TEST OF TWO MULTIPLE GROUP MEMBERSHIP HYPOTHESES BY Helenan Sonnenburg Lewis AN ABSTRACT OF A THESIS Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of Political Science 1962 ABSTRACT THE TEENAGE JOINER AND HIS ORIENTATIONS TOWARD PUBLIC AFFAIRS: A TEST OF TWO MULTIPLE GROUP MEMBERSHIP HYPOTHESES by Helenan Sonnenburg Lewis This dissertation is a test of two hypotheses con— cerning the consequences of multiple group membership in high school extra-curricular activities on the development of favorable orientations toward public affairs. The first hypothesis states that membership in extra-curricular activities is associated with a sense of political efficacy, belief in the legitimacy of and satisfaction with political institutions, and interest and expectation of future par- ticipation in politics. This hypothesis is based on Arnold Rose's theory of the functions of voluntary associations in a democratic society.1 The second hypothesis is based on Georg Simmel's theory of pluralistic participation.2 Simmel states that individuals who join organizations to satisfy several interests will be exposed to cross-pressures, and that this experience will contribute to personality inte- gration. A corollary of this is that individuals who join several types of voluntary associations should perceive Helenan Sonnenburg Lewis institutions normally involved in conflict as less threat- ening than those who do not. The hypothesis holds that membership in different types of extra—curricular activi— ties or membership in activities whose other members belong to activities of different types is associated with interest and expectation of future participation in politics, open- mindedness about political belief systems, and weak political party identification. The data were collected in Holt, a suburb of Lansing, Michigan. Questionnaires were administered in May, 1960, to the entire student body of the community's only high school. Indexes measuring sense of political efficacy, legitimacy of political institutions, satisfaction with political parties, interest and expectation of future par— ticipation in politics, and open-mindedness about political belief systems were developed through a factor analysis of the responses to the political items in the questionnaire. Students prepared lists of their school activities which were supplemented with information from the school year- book. These were used to construct three indexes of mul- tiple group membership: (1) number of memberships in extra—curricular activities; (2) number of different types Helenan Sonnenburg Lewis of group memberships; and, (3) single- and multi-factor group memberships. The third index was constructed through a factor analysis of phi-coefficients computed between pairs of groups in the high school. This index distin- guishes between groups in which the members belong to different types of groups, and groups whose members belong primarily to one type of group. Significant chi-square values were obtained when the index of number of memberships in extra-curricular activi- ties was compared with the responses of students on the political indexes. Students who had three or more mem- berships expressed a greater sense of political efficacy, belief in the legitimacy of political institutions, satis- faction with political parties, and interest and expecta- tion of future participation in politics than students with no memberships or only one or two memberships. These findings confirm the hypothesis derived from two of Rose's three functions of voluntary associations: the distri- bution of power in society, and the development of satis— faction with democratic processes. When the number of types of memberships index and the single- and plural-factor index were compared with the Helenan Sonnenburg Lewis students' responses on the political indexes, significant chi-squares were again obtained. Students who belonged to two or more types of groups and those who belonged to groups in which the members belonged to different types of groups expressed greater interest and expectation of future participation in politics, were more open—minded about political belief systems, and had weaker political party identifications than the students who belonged to one type of group or those who belonged to groups whose members belonged to only one type of group. These findings seem generally to confirm Georg Simmel's theory of pluralistic participation as it applies to politics. 1Arnold M. Rose, Theory and Method in the Social Sciences (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1954), pp. 51-69. 2Georg Simmel, The Web of Group:Affiliations, translated by Reinhard Bendix (Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press, 1955), pp. 125-195. THE TEENAGE JOINER AND HIS ORIENTATIONS TOWARD PUBLIC AFFAIRS: A TEST OF TWO MULTIPLE GROUP MEMBERSHIP HYPOTHESES BY Helenan Sonnenburg Lewis A THESIS Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of Political Science 1962 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This dissertation is part of a larger study of politi- cal socialization conducted by the Bureau of Social and Political Research at Michigan State University. I am indebted to all the members of the Bureau staff for their contributions of time, imagination, and enthusiasm to the entire study and to my own small part of it. Special men- tion and warm thanks are due, however, to the following: To Dr. Frank A. Pinner, Director of the Bureau and Chairman of my Guidance Committee, for his genuine concern, throughout the years of my graduate study, for my develop- ment as a political scientist and as a person. His own talents are many, and he has not hesitated to share any and all of them with me in the attainment of my education. To Francis M. Sim, Research Analyst, for the application of his vast knowledge of research techniques, statistics, and computers to the development of indexes to measure students' political orientations and multiple group mem- bership. From him, I have learned to probe deeply into the meanings of each methodological and statistical tech- nique which I have employed. To Hilda Jaffe, Editor, for her creative editing of this manuscript. Her insistence that the logical development ii of a problem be preserved in its description has made this dissertation a more ordered and readable presentation. To Ira Rohter and Phyllis Carlson, graduate assistants, for their precise execution of my data processing instruc- tions. They themselves did much of the IBM and computer work for this dissertation. Acknowledgment is also due two professors in the Depart- ment of Political Science who served on my Guidance Committee and read this manuscript in its many versions: To Dr. Alan P. Grimes, for his many years of encourage- ment and advice, and for his wise counsel as to the organi- zation of the theoretical chapter of this dissertation. To Dr. Samuel Krislov, for his wonderful good humor and his firm contact with reality. To him I owe the realization that even my modest findings about the consequences of membership in extra-curricular activities for the political socialization of teenagers were surprising in view of the realities of the extra-curricular activity program in high schools. Finally, I am indebted above all to my husband, David M. Lewis, Instructor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology. Without his love, his devotion, and his iii attentive supervision of our son and our household, this dissertation and the degree that I have sought so long could not have been completed. He has been delayed in his own doctoral program because of the share of his time, talents, and energy he generously gave so I could complete mine. My gratitude for this sacrifice has no bounds. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ii LIST OF TABLES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Vii Chapter I. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM . . . . . . . . . . 1 Introduction 1 Groups in Society 1 Arnold Rose's Theory of the Function of Voluntary Associations in Democratic Societies 12 The First Multiple Group Membership Hypothesis 21 Georg Simmel and Pluralistic Participation 23 The Second Multiple Group Membership Hypothesis 33 II. COMPOSITION OF THE STUDENT BODY . . . . . . . 36 Sex, Grade, and Curriculum 38 Occupational Aspiration 40 Social Class Identification and Other Indicators of Socio-economic Status 46 Religious Affiliation 50 Perceived Ethnicity 52 III. THE STUDENTS' POLITICAL ORIENTATIONS . . . . 54 Responses to the Questionnaire 57 Construction of Indexes to Measure Political Orientations 79 Association of the Indexes with Sex, Grade in School, and Social Class Identification 89 Chapter IV. MEMBERSHIP IN EXTRA-CURRICULAR ACTIVITIES AND POLITICAL ORIENTATIONS . . . . . . . Construction of an Index Measuring the Amount of Participation in Extra- Curricular Activities Correlates of Membership in Extra- Curricular Activities Test of the First Multiple Group Membership Hypothesis V. PLURALISTIC PARTICIPATION AND POLITICAL ORIENTATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . Construction of Indexes to Measure Pluralistic Participation Test of the Second Multiple Group Membership Hypothesis VI. CONCLUSIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . APPENDIX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A. Questionnaire Administered in Holt High School on May 18, 1960 B. Questionnaire Administered in Holt High School on May 20, 1960 BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vi Page 98 98 103 117 144 145 146 166 176 176 197 222 10. 11. LIST OF TABLES Frequency distribution of students' curricula . Percentage distribution of students choosing occupations which they had considered entering, expected to enter, preferred to enter, and preferred to have by the time they were thirty years of age. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Percentage distribution of students choosing occupations they expected to enter and the occupations of their fathers . . . . . . . . . Frequency distribution of social class identification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Frequency distribution of scores on Duncan's socio-economic index by population deciles . . Frequency distribution of religious affiliation Percentage distribution of students assigning motives for entering politics, religion, and business . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Frequency distribution of responses to questions about why political parties exist . . . . . . . Percentage distribution of responses for boys and girls to a check list of things which are very important to know about a person you might want to marry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Frequency distribution of responses to questions about political interest . . . . . . . . . Frequency of political, religious, and financial 0 discussion with father, mother, friends, teacher, and minister by sex . . . . . . . . . . . . vii Page 39 42 44 46 49 51 59 62 66 67 7O Table 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. Page Frequency of political, religious, and financial discussion with father, mother, friends, teacher and minister by grade in school . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 Percentage distribution of responses concerning newspaper sections read regularly by sex . . . . 76 Percentage distribution of responses concerning favorite television program by sex . . . . . . . 77 Percentage distribution of responses concerning kinds of books and magazines preferred by sex . . 77 Varimax rotation of a factor matrix of twenty- two agree-disagree items concerning the poli- tical orientations of students . . . . . . . . . 83 Interest and expectation of future participation in politics by sex, grade, and social class identification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 Political party appreciation by sex, grade, and social class identification . . . . . . . . . . . 93 Sense of political efficacy by sex, grade, and social class identification . . . . . . . . . . . 94 Belief in the legitimacy of political insti- tutions by sex, grade, and social class identification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 Open—mindedness about political belief systems by sex, grade, and social class identification. . 96 Membership in extra—curricular activities at Holt High School . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 Frequency distribution of number of memberships in extra-curricular activities . . . . . . . . . 102 viii Table Page 24. Correlates of group membership . . . . . . . . 108 25. Bivariate distribution in percentages of occupations of Denver residents by number of group memberships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 26. Sense of political efficacy by number of memberships in extra-curricular activities . . 119 27. Political party appreciation by number of memberships in extra-curricular activities . . 123 28. Political party appreciation by number of memberships in extra-curricular activities of ninth and tenth grade students . . . . . . . . 124 29. Political party appreciation by number of memberships in extra-curricular activities of eleventh and twelfth grade students . . . . . . 125 30. Chi-square values and probabilities for items in the political party appreciation index by number of memberships in extra-curricular activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127 31. Belief in the legitimacy of political insti— tutions by number of memberships in extra- curricular activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130 32. Belief in the legitimacy of political insti- tutions by number of memberships in extra- curricular activities of ninth and tenth grade students . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131 33. Belief in the legitimacy of political insti- tutions by number of memberships in extra- curricular activities of eleventh and twelfth grade students . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132 ix Table Page 34. Interest and expectation of future participation in politics by number of memberships in extra- curricular activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 35. Interest and expectation of future participation in politics by number of memberships in extra- curricular activities of students who identify with the upper or middle class. . . . . . . . . . 137 36. Interest and expectation of future participation in politics by number of memberships in extra- curricular activities of students who identify with the working or lower class . . . . . . . . . 138 37. Frequency of political discussion with father by member of memberships in extra—curricular activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139 38. Frequency of political discussion with mother by number of memberships in extra-curricular activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140 39. Frequency of political discussion with friends by number of memberships in extra-curricular activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141 40. Frequency of political discussion with teachers by number of memberships in extra-curricular activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142 41. Exposure to mass media on public affairs ques- tions by number of memberships in extra- curricular activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143 42. Frequency distribution of membership in different types of extra-curricular activities . 147 43. Frequency distribution of number of different types of group memberships . . . . . . . . . . . 149 X Table Page 44. Varimax rotation of a factor matrix of phi- coefficients computed on memberships in extra—curricular activities in Holt High School, Spring, 1960 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149 45. Interest and expectation of future participation in politics by single- and multi-factor group membership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153 46. Interest and expectation of future participation in politics by number of types of group membership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154 47. Open-mindedness about political belief systems by single- and multi-factor group membership. . . 158 48. Open-mindedness about political belief systems by number of types of group memberships . . . . . 159 49. Strength of political party identification by single- and multi-factor group membership . . . . 162 50. Strength of political party identification by number of types of group memberships . . . . . . 163 51. Weak and strong political party identification by number of types of group memberships . . . . . 165 xi LIST OF APPENDICES Page Questionnaire Administered May 18, 1960 in Holt High School, Holt, Michigan . . . . . . . 176 Questionnaire Administered May 20, 1960 in Holt High School, Holt, Michigan . . . . . . . 197 xii CHAPTER I STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM Introduction The functions which secondary associations should and do serve in a democratic society are questions of politi— cal philosophy and political sociology. One of the great debates of the 17th century democratic theorists was whether the state was the_supreme sovereign association or whether it shared this sovereignty with certain other groups, particularly religious associations. Rousseau argued that secondary associations were divisive forces in society because they tended to create in the citizen conflicting loyalties. Locke, on the other hand, viewed such associations as cohesive forces that mediated between the individual and his society.l His argument is so generally accepted in the United States today that social scientists are less concerned with the functions that secondary associations should serve than they are with the consequences association membership has for its 1George H. Sabine, "The Two Democratic Traditions," Philosophical Review, LXI (October, 1952), pp. 451-474. members--the functions they actually do serve. This dissertation is an example of the latter, being concerned with the functions that a particular type of secondary association, the extra-curricular activities of high school students, serve in preparing their members for participa- tion in a democratic society. Two general theories of the consequences of group membership for the development of political orientations are appropriate to this study. The first is American sociologist Arnold Rose's theory of the functions of voluntary associations in a democratic society.2 The second is German sociologist Georg Simmel's theory of the consequences of pluralistic participation, that is, mem- bership in different types of groups or groups with dif- ferent membership characteristics.3 These theories under- lie the two hypotheses about membership in voluntary associations which were tested on a teenage population, the student body of Holt High School, in May, 1960. 2Arnold H. Rose, Theory and Method in the Social Sciences (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1954). pp. 51-69. 3Georg Simmel, The Web of Group-Affiliations, trans- lated by Reinhard Bendix (Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press, 1955), pp. 125-195. The hypotheses are as follows: 1) Membership in extra-curricular activities is asso- ciated with a sense of political efficacy, belief in the legitimacy of and satisfaction with political institutions, and interest and expectation of future participation in politics. 2) Membership in different types of extra-curricular activities or membership in activities whose other members belong to different types of activities is associated with interest and expectation of future participation in politics, open-mindedness about political belief systems, and weak political party identification. In the first chapter groups will be classified into categoric groups, ascribed groups, and voluntary associa— tions, and it will be shown how the latter have their origins in the Rennaissance and how extra-curricular activities fit the definition of voluntary associations; Arnold Rose's theory and the first hypothesis above will then be discussed, followed by a discussion of the Simmel theory and the second hypothesis. Chapter II is a description of the student body of Holt High School. The third, fourth, and fifth chapters present the findings of the study, the construction of indexes on the political and group variables, and the results of the tests of the two hypotheses. The Conclusions discuss the implications of this study for political science and for future research. Groups in Society Modern society is a mosaic of groups, large and small, among whose members there are varying amounts of inter- action and varying degrees of affection. According to the schema of Arnold Rose4groups can be classified into three types: categoric groups, ascribed groups, and voluntary associations.5 Categoric groups are broad population classifications, like sex, age, racial, ethnic, socio- economic, and religious groupings. No face-to-face contact among members of categoric groups is implied in the defini- tion. Ascribed groups are social structures into which people are born--the family, church, community,and state. Voluntary associations are groups joined by individual choice. Rose defines them as follows: A small group of people, finding they have a cer- tain interest (or purpose) in common, agree to meet and to act together in order to try to satisfy that interest or achieve that purpose. Frequently their action requires that they urge other like-minded persons to join them, so that the associations may 4Rose, op. cit., p. 53. 5Charles H. Cooley classified groups into primary and secondary, the former being characterized as more intimate than the latter. (Social Organization [New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1909], p. 23.) become very large and extend throughout the whole country. They have absolutely no formal contact with the government (unless, of course, they commit an offense against the general criminal law, which is naturally extremely rare). As social structures they have distinct features of formal leadership, special- ized activity, rules for operating, place and time of meeting, and so on. Voluntary associations have a history in Western society of only a few hundred years. They did not exist in primitive society or even as late as the Middle Ages. In primitive society, all of one's affiliations are based on ascribed status characteristics. The individual primi- tive belongs to an age group, a sex group, a family, a tribe and, if the population is so divided, to a phratry, a moity, a sib, or a gens. He may also belong to a totemic (religious) association which includes all or part of his tribe. Intricate rules prescribe patterns of interaction with members of each of these groups, particularly across sex lines, and the individual's chances for free association with other people on the basis of common interests are severely limited.7 6Rose, 0 . cit., p. 52. 7Simmel, op. cit., pp. 132-133. Even as late as the Middle Ages, most group memberships were ascribed. The individual was born to membership in a church, a family, a military unit, a community,and an occupation. Associations joining cities together, like the Hansa League, permitted wide geographical participation for the individual, but limited to groups having the same occupation in other cities. Crossing stratification lines, except for priests who were drawn from all strata and were obliged to give up all private ties, was virtually impossible.8 According to Georg Simmel, "free association" in groups had its origin in the Renaissance. The period of the Renaissance demonstrated most clearly the power of intellectual and educational interests to bring together in a new community like- minded people from a large variety of different groups. Humanistic interests broke down the medieval isolation of social groups and of estates. They gave to people who represented the most diverse points of view and who remained faithful to the most diverse occupations, a common interest in ideas and in knowledge. This common interest, whether one of active pursuit or of passive appreciation, cut across all previously established forms and institutions of medieval life. Humanism at that time entered the experience of all peoples and groups from the outside as something that was equally strange to all. And this very fact made it possible for Humanism to become a common area of 8Simmel, op. cit., p. 144. interest for them all, or at any rate for certain people among them.9 Simmel argues that after the beginning of the Renais- sance the bases of social differentiation and group forma— tion differed from those of the pre-Renaissance period. Earlier the formation of groups had been based either on self-interest (economic, military, or political groups), emotion (religious groups), or a mixture of both (the family). After the beginning of the Renaissance, intel- lectual and rational interests came to be the basis of group formation as well. Simmel writes, This is a striking example of the general trend, that the formation of groups, which has occurred more recently, often bears a rational character, and that the substantive purpose of these groups is the result of conscious reflection and intelligent planning. Thus, secondary groups, because of their rational formation give the appearance of being determined by a purpose, since their affairs revolve around intellectually articulated interests.10 Although the phenomenon of voluntary associations had its origin in Europe, it is in the United States that the formation of groups around all likely interests became widespread. Both Alexis de Toqueville and Lord James Bryce 91bid.. pp. 135-136. lOIbid., p. 137. commented on the number of voluntary associations they observed when they visited the United States.11 Social scientists have recently, however, presented data to show that the United States is less a nation of joiners than had been assumed. Komarovsky12 and Axelrodl3 have studied urban dwellers, to whom extensive group memberships have long been attributed, and provided evi- dence that membership in a large number of associations is by no means characteristic of all segments of the popu- lation. A national sample survey of adults conducted by the National Opinion Research Center in 1954 revealed that 36% of the sample claimed membership in one or more voluntary associations, while 64% claimed none.14 The 11Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (New York: Vintage Books, 1954), I, p. 199; James Bryce, Modern Demo— cracies (New York: Macmillan, 1921), I, p. 132. 2Mirra Komarovsky, "The Voluntary Associations of Urban Dwellers," American Sociological Review, XI (Decem- ber, 1946), 686-698. 3Morris Axelrod, "Urban Structure and Social Partici- pation," American Sociological Review, XXI (February, 1956), 13-18. 14 Charles R. Wright and Herbert H. Hyman, "Voluntary Association Memberships of American Adults: Evidence from National Sample Surveys," American Sociological Review, XXIII (June, 1958), 286. same study reported that 47% of the sample belonged to families in which no member was affiliated with an asso- ciation.15 Membership tends to increase with income, education, level of living, and home ownership. It is more prevalent among professionals, proprietors, and managers than among other occupational groups. Extra-curricular activities are among the more impor- tant voluntary associations open to teenagers. They had their origin in the United States in the middle of the 19th century. Before then school was considered such a serious business that any kind of recreation was barely condoned. Even feast days and holidays had an uphill fight to win acceptance in the school program. School activities beyond the formal curriculum were first introduced along the Eastern Seaboard, the older and more settled section of the country. The Phillips Debating Club was founded in 1841, Exeter's first game of football took place in 1859, and in the same year the first dramatic 15Idem. Idem. 17 Robert W. Frederick, The Third Curriculum (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc.), p. 22. 10 society was established at the Hartford Public School.18 Since that time, educational institutions have moved from intense antipathy toward athletic and literary activ- ities of students to a capitalization of the educative values of extraclass activities. Today, no one would think of building a school that did not include a running track, a football and baseball field, an auditorium, a gymnasium, social rooms and, frequently, student council and publications offices. Since student activities are now thought to be an integral phase of the educational process, they are made easily available and participation in them is encouraged. They are, in fact, the third curriculum (the required and elective curricula are the first and second).19 Participation in extra-curricular activities is fairly extensive among high school students, both in number of students participating and number of activities per stu- dent. Carol Stone found, for example, that only 6 percent of the students in five Washington (state) high schools belonged to no school organizations, while she found the l81bid., p. 24. 19Idem. 11 average participation rate was 2.5 organizations per boy and 3.7 organizations per girl.20 In its Holt, Michigan, study, the Bureau of Social and Political Research at Michigan State University found that only 17.9% of the students of Holt High School belonged to no extra-curricular school groups and that the average participation rate was 2.2 groups per student. In his theory of the consequences of membership in adult voluntary associations, Rose distinguishes between groups that "act only to express or satisfy the interests of their members in relations to themselves"21 and those that "are directed outward, . . . wish to achieve some condition or change in some limited segment of the society as a whole."22 The former, Rose calls "expressive" groups, and the latter, "social influence" groups. His theory of the functions of voluntary associations in a democratic society applies more to the latter, although not exclusively. 20 . . . . . Carol L. Stone, Pac1fic County Teenagers' ActiVities and Social Relations (Washington Agricultural Experiment Statiors Circular 373 [May, 1960]), p. 15. 21Rose, op. cit., p. 52. 22Idem. 12 There is no question that extra—curricular activities are mainly "expressive" groups. They act only to satisfy the interests of their members, and thus are unlikely to serve all the functions suggested by Rose's theory, as will be noted below. Arnold Rose's Theory of the Functions of Voluntary Associations in Democratic Societies Rose's theory singles out voluntary associations as the primary supporters of political democracy in the United States. He says that while other groups like the family, the church, the community, and the state tend to be totalitarian, voluntary associations distribute and diver- sify power and influence.23 He notes that the establish- ment of modern totalitarian regimes has regularly been "attended by the destruction or 'integration' of voluntary associations." His theory proposes the following three functions for voluntary associations: (1) they prevent a concentration and centralization of power; (2) they help individuals to understand how political processes operate; and, (3) they 2311214... p. 58. 24mm” p. 54. 13 . 2 are mechanisms for soc1al change. Voluntary associations prevent a concentration and centralization of power, Rose writes, by distributing power over social life among a very large proportion of the citizenry, instead of allowing its concentration solely in the hands of elected representatives. He says that this feature of voluntary associations gives the United States "a little of the character of the ancient Greek democratic city-state as well as of the modern . . 2 . European centralized republic" 6 and continues: Through the voluntary association the ordinary citizen can acquire as much power in the community or the nation as his free time, ability, and inclination permit him to, without going into the government service, provided he accepts the competition for power of other like-minded citizens. . . . Political power, or influence, in the United States is not con- centrated in the government but is distributed over as many citizens, working through their associations, as want to take the responsibility for power.27 Voluntary associations help individuals understand how political processes operate by showing them these processes in limited circumstances which are of direct interest to the individual himself. Rose feels that the individual gains a greater sense of satisfaction with the democratic 25;§;§,, p. 51. 26Idem. 27Ibid., p. 69. l4 process when his interests are directly involved than when these processes seem to "grind away in a distant, imper- sonal, and incomprehensible fashion," as they do in most . . . 28 . government actiVities. He writes: Those who thus participate become aware of how pro- cesses function in their society, they learn how things are done in at least the limited sphere in which they operate. The voluntary association informs its members on matters occurring in the society at large that affect the association's purpose. This does not make the members satisfied in the sense that they always like what they learn, but it makes them satisfied in the sense that they understand some of the complex mechanisms that control them. As society grows more and more complex, the average citizen is usually less and less able to understand the devious controls within it, and this creates dissatisfaction. The voluntary association provides him an avenue for understanding some of the controls and thus a degree of social satisfaction.29 Finally, voluntary associations can be mechanisms for social change if, as the need for change is felt, new groups are formed to accomplish the change or exert pres- sure on the government to take action.30 !Rose does not hold that each felt need should necessarily be met but, rather, that in a healthy society there is a constant search for solutions to long standing problems. He has noted that most associations continue to exist only as 28 30 Ibid., p. 51. 29Idem.. Ibid., p. 69. 15 long as the need for them exists, that individuals join the group in the first place because of a specific interest in its goal, and they will withdraw if its goal changes; when the goal changes, the group in effect becomes a new 31 group. The implications of Rose's theory have generally been recognized by political theorists and political sociolo- gists. G. D. H. Cole and James Bryce recognized that groups mediate between the individual and his society and involve him in democratic participation. Cole writes: . . . [men] can control great affairs only by acting together in the control of small affairs, and finding, through the experience of neighborhood, men whom they entrust with larger decisions than they can make rationally for themselves. Democracy can work in the great States (and a fortiori between great States or over Europe or the world) only if each State is made up of a host of little democracies, and rests finally, not on isolated individuals, but on groups small enough to express the spirit of neighborhood and per- sonal acquaintance . . . . Democracies have either to be small, or to be broken up into small, human groups in which men and women can know and love one another.32 Similarly, James Bryce wrote, "An essential ingredient of a satisfactory democracy is that a considerable proportion of 3lIbid., p. 58. 32G. D. H. Cole, Essays in Social Theory (London: Macmillan, 1950), pp. 94-95. 16 the people should have experience of active participation in the work of small self-governing groups, whether in connection with local government, trade unions, coopera- tives or other forms of activity."33 Sidney Verba, a present-day political scientist who has recently published a study of small groups and political behavior, concurs with this viewpoint. He asserts that the individual's experiences with small groups gives him certain generalized expectations from political relationships and trains him for participation in them. He writes: Participation in small face-to-face groups where the individual can have some grasp of the alternatives available for choice is preparation for participation in decisions that are more complex, less immediate, and engage only a small part of an individual's atten— tion. . . . Participation in decisions on levels below that of the political system is a requisite or, at least, a desirable adjunct to a democratic political system. In the first place, insofar as significant political decisions are made in such sub-groups, ef- fective participation in the political system will not exist unless members can participate on these lower levels. In larger units, the organizational necessities associated with a larger structure make participation difficult, if not impossible.34 33Bryce, loc. cit. 4Sidney Verba, Small Groups and Political Behavior: A Study of Leadership (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton Uni— versity Press, 1961), pp. 33-36. 17 Sociological and political research in the last three decades has tended to support an extension of the second point in Rose's theory, that people who have experienced and been satisfied with democratic processes will also become actively involved in politics, if only by being more active voters. This research has sought relationships between voluntary association membership and voting, in— terest in public issues, and involvement in civic affairs. Wayne Dennis, for example, found that a greater propor- tion of the members of the Lansing chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution registered to vote in the 1928 presidential election than did either a random sample of the women in the community or of the neighbors of the D.A.R. members.35 Hastings found that voluntary association members in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, were more likely to state that they voted regularly than were non-members. Agger and Ostrom found statistical associations between 35Wayne Dennis, "Registration and Voting in a Patriotic Organization," Journal of Social Psychology, I (May, 1930), 317-318. 36Philip K. Hastings, "The Non-Voter in 1952: A Study of Pittsfield, Massachusetts," Journal of Psychology, XXXVIII (Fall, 1954), 301-312. 18 the number of memberships in voluntary associations of people in a rural Oregon community and the kinds of poli— tical activity they engaged in,37 and Hyman and Wright observed in Denver, Colorado, that the more memberships individuals had, the greater was their interest and in- volvement in civic affairs. Murray Hausknecht has recently completed a study of the correlates of voluntary association membership in the United States. Using data from national sample surveys conducted by National Opinion Research Center and the American Institute of Public Opinion, he found that volun- tary association members read more magazines, spent on the average more time each week reading books, had more knowl- edge about community organizations, community problems, and March of Dimes sponsorship, and participated in greater .. . . . 39 numbers in community public serVice work. However, he 37Robert E. Agger and Vincent Ostrom, "The Political Structure of a Small Community," Public Opinion Quarterly, XX (Spring, 1956), 81-89. 38Charles B. Wright and Herbert H. Hyman, o . cit., pp. 284-294. 39Murry Hausknecht, The Joiners: A Sociological De- scription of Voluntary Association Membership in the United States (New York: The Bedminster Press, 1962), pp. 102-109. 19 was not willing to maintain absolutely that these data really confirmed Arnold Rose's theory. His reservations result from other data about voluntary association mem- bers that he included in his study, wherein it appears that the people who would benefit most from voluntary association membership (the poorly-educated, lower income urban dwellers) are not members, while the people who are better educated and generally better informed on public issues are members. He concludes from this that the citizenship functions of voluntary association membership are "somewhat irrelevant." He suggests a second reason for being critical of the Rose theory, which is that voluntary associations are not as democratically organized as Rose says. It is possible to argue, of course, that almost all associations in our society are democratic, and even a hobby club reproduces in miniature the processes of the larger society. The validity of the assumption that experience in microcosm fits one to understand and interact in macrocosm is doubtful, but there are more pragmatic grounds for scepticism here. Most organiza- tions are "democratic" in name only; for the American Medical Association as well as the local social and athletic club "oligarchical” is a more apt descriptive term. Membership and participation within these organizations hardly leads to the type of experience functional for the survival of political democracy within the larger society.4O 4°Ibid., p. 112. 20 Hausknecht's arguments may, however, be less relevant for teenagers' voluntary associations than they are for adult associations, for two reasons: (1) Studies of the organizational affiliations of adolescents tend to indi- cate that adolescents belong to groups in proportionately larger numbers, and belong to more groups on the average, than adults do. In the Holt data and in the study of Carol Stone referred to above, the same proportion of students from lower income families belong to school organizations as students from upper and middle income families. (2) Student organizations are small and their membership is temporary and thus, they are less inclined toward oli- garchy. Organizations in high schools rarely have as many as 100 members, usually less than thirty. There is a turn— over in membership in each group every three or four years. If the organizations are in any way undemocratic, it is through control of school authorities, rather than through internal bureaucratic and oligarchic tendencies. Stone, loc. cit. 21 The First Multiple Group Membership Hypothesis Arnold Rose's theory suggests hypotheses about voluntary association membership that can be tested on a teenage population. One of the functions of voluntary associations he stresses is that they prevent the concentration of power by distributing it among as many citizens as are willing to take responsibility for power. Accordingly, the extent to which students assume responsibility for decisions made in school organizations may also result in giving these students a sense of efficacy. There is no boundary line dividing the school from the community; the high school voluntary associations touch the community through the students them— selves, the teachers, and the families of the students. Their ties to the community are direct when the high school basketball team defends the town's honor against a local rival, when the seniors present their class play for their parents, or when the science club tests the local water supply and finds it polluted. In all of these cases, the students are exercising a responsibility to their fellow club members and to the community, and an increase in their sense of social or political efficacy is a likely consequence. 22 Another function which Rose believes voluntary asso- ciation membership serves is in helping individuals to understand how political processes operate and in giving them satisfaction with these processes. Association mem- bers see how elections are conducted, how decisions are made, and how members cooperate with one another in at— tempting to solve group problems. Their experience should result in their becoming less distrustful of similar behavior in the larger community, i.e., less distrustful of political institutions. Rose's third function of voluntary associations is that they are mechanisms for social change. He believes that individuals join groups because they have a common interest in some goal, frequently a goal connected with a desire for changes in the environment. This is less true of extra- curricular activities, however, than of adult voluntary associations, since extra-curricular activities tend to be "expressive" rather than "social influence" organizations. Therefore, no test of a hypothesis about membership in extra-curricular activities and readiness to attempt social or political change will be attempted in this dissertation. 23 To summarize, the hypothesis which is related to Rose's theory that will be tested is the following: Membership in extra-curricular activities is associated with a sense of political efficacy, belief in the legi- timacy of and satisfaction with political institutions, and interest and expectation of future participation in politics. Georg Simmel and Pluralistic Participation The Rose theory and the hypothesis based on it assumes that all voluntary associations affect the individual in roughly the same way. From each of his group affiliations the individual learns something about democratic processes, and may exercise responsibility in eadh. A logical conse- quence of this argument is that additional group affilia- tions must simply mean that the individual learns more and has increased opportunity for responsibility in more situations. The Simmel theory proposes that an increase in the number of group memberships has more than an additive value to the individual. Each new group affiliation contributes something new to his socialization and, in addition, pro— vides a widened basis for his individuality. No two organizations are alike; they have different members, 24 interests, and norms.42 In Simmel's words, when an indi- vidual joins a new group, he "surrenders himself” to the group, and he gains from the group its own "heritage," that is, the group socializes the new member to accept its interests and the norms its members value. The conse- quence of this exchange is that the members individuality is enhanced. The groups with which the individual is affiliated constitute a system of coordinates, as it were, such that each new group with which he becomes affiliated circumscribes him more exactly and more unambiguously. To belong to any of these groups leaves the individual considerable leeway. But the larger the number of groups to which an individual belongs, the more improbable it is that other persons will exhibit the same combination of group affiliations, that these particular groups will "intersect" once again (in a second individual). . . . As a person becomes affili- ated with a social group, he surrenders himself to it. A synthesis of such subjective affiliations creates a group in an objective sense. But the person also regains his individuality because his pattern of par- ticipation is unique; hence the fact of multiple group— participation creates in turn a new subjective element. Causal determinations of, and purposive action by, the individual appear as two sides of the same coin. The genesis of the personality has been interpreted as the point of intersection for innumerable social influences, as the end-product of heritages derived from the most diverse groups and periods of adjustment. Hence, indi- viduality was interpreted as that particular set of constituent elements which in their quality and 42If two groups were alike in members, interests, and norms, they would really be the same group. 25 combination make up the individual. But as the indi- vidual becomes affiliated with social groups in accordance with the diversity of his drives and interests, he thereby expresses and returns what he has "received," though he does so consciously and on a higher 1eve1.43 Simmel says that groups socialize their members, but he does not really say how this is accomplished. Modern social scientists have offered some answers: political scientist Robert Lane suggests that socialization is accomplished through group communication--what the members of the group say to one another and what they write in their magazines, specialized newspapers, and bulletins. Lane describes the phenomena as follows: . . . more specifically, the mechanisms whereby groups affect their members involve an understanding of what takes place in this group communication. In the first place, a person gets his standard of judgment of right and wrong from a group. Here, then, he learns the nature and content of civic duty. In the same way, he acquires beliefs about his social environment. There is considerable justification for anchoring social opinions in group opinion. A person cannot test most of the relevant propositions for himself; by drawing on a pool of beliefs and experience he is more likely to be right than by relying on his own private experi- ence. He learns about himself from the group. This is true in two ways. As George Herbert Mead has pointed out, a person derives his self image from the images which others have of him; he "discovers" that he is a 43Simmel, op. cit., pp. 140-141. 26 leader, a friendly person, a "responsible citizen." But also, in another sense, he learns about himself by finding his identity partially defined by his group memberships. He comes to think of himself as a "mem- ber of the country-club set" or a "shantytowner" or simply a "Rotarian." He develops new life goals through group contacts, such as changes of career or value changes. Thus, from the group he learns what to think about the political world and what to think about him- self as a political individual. And, in most groups, he learns to act out his beliefs and is encouraged to do 80.44 Lane's use of the word "encouraged" in his last sen; tence is an understatement of what happens in many groups. Social scientists have regularly noted, in studies of both experimental and real groups, very definite internal and external pressures toward conformity. In fact, these pressures have been observed even in experimental groups whose participants did not know one another. Muzafer Sherif, for example, recorded that persons viewing the illusory movement of a fixed point of light together gave estimates of movement within a narrow range, whereas persons viewing the illusion separately reported a much wider range of move- ment. Furthermore, he found that someone who had established a certain range of movement when he viewed the illusion alone, in a second trial in which he heard the reports of 4 Robert E. Lane, Political Life (Glencoe: The Free Press, 1959), pp. 189-190. 27 of others, adjusted his own standard to conform more closely with the group norm.45 Solomon Asch found that experimental subjects, even in situations in which the group opinion was objectively wrong, would change their estimate of the length of lines u: conform to the group. Verba suggests that if experimental subjects modify correct judgments where there are clear empirical referents for incorrect group opinions, it is easy to see how indi- viduals who belong to real groups might be willing to modify social or political opinions for which there are no clear objective referents, to conform with those of other group members.47 This need not be necessarily true, however, since the judgments made in experimental situa— tions hold little significance for the individual, but his social and political attitudes are likely to be of greater importance to him. 45Muzafer Sherif, The ngcholoqy of Social Norms (New York: Harper, 1936). 46 " Solomon E. Asch, Effects of Group Pressures upon the Modification and Distortion of Judgments," in Cartwright and Zander, Group Dynamics (Evanston: Row, Peterson, and Co., 1953), pp. 151-162. 47Sidney Verba, o . cit., pp. 23-24. 28 There is also ample evidence from research on real groups to demonstrate that individuals are willing to change their social and political opinions to bring them into conformity with group norms, as well as to show that individuals who refuse to modify their opinions are the ones less frequently chosen as "best liked." Newcomb found this to be true of college girls, Kelley and Volk- hart of a boy scout troop, and Festinger, Schacter, and Back of a housing project. Why does the individual feel he must conform to the norms of his group? Two explanations appear frequently in the literature. Festinger suggests that the willing- ness to conform derives from the individual's desire to reduce the unpleasantness of a situation in which he per- ceives that his views conflict with the views of others present--a situation which Festinger calls "cognitive dissonance." For the individual this is an internal 48Theodore M. Newcomb, Personality and Social Change (New York: Dryden Press, 1943); H. H. Kelley and E. H. Volkhart, "The Resistance to Change of Group-anchored Attitudes," American Sociological Review, XVII (1952), 453—465; Leon Festinger, Stanley Schacter, and Kurt W. Back, Social Pressures in Informal Groupg (New York: Harper, 1950), Chapters 5 and 6. 29 pressure. In addition, however, he is subjected to exter— nal pressure from other members of the group who have similarly felt the dissonance and are trying to reduce the unpleasantness they feel by coercing him to change his views to conform with those of the group. The second explanation considers the individual's reason for joining the group in the first place. If he joined to satisfy certain needs (perhaps the need for acceptance by others or for a sense of belonging) then he is not likely to give up these goals easily. Lane writes: The truth of the matter is that he has much at stake in the conditions of his group life. He has joined the group to satisfy certain needs. If it is a need for social adjustment, he has valued friendships at stake and he will adjust his interests and behavior so that he alienates as few fellow members as possible. If he seeks power within the group, he will accommo- date his political views so that he can gratify these power drives. If the group offers economic rewards he will extract these better from the group if he retains his membership in good standing. In short, as Lewin has pointed out, the group is a "life-space" in which a person can achieve some part of his life goals. 'He will not lightly sacrifice these goals.50 49Leon Festinger, A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance (Evanston, Illinois: Row, Peterson, and Company, 1957). 50Lane, 0 . cit., p. 191. 3O Pressures exerted on the individual to make him con- form would be of little consequence if all of his affil— iations were mutually supporting-—that is, if they soci- alized him toward belief in a common value system. The individual would probably not even be aware of the pressure. Thus, politically, supportive group affiliations usually enhance partisanship and lead to heightened interest and participation in politics. Membership in different groups can, however, subject the individual to cross-pressures when the value systems of two or more of his groups are conflicting. The notion of cross-pressure originated with Georg Simmel, who empha- sized that membership in groups pursuing different interests has a positive value in helping to integrate the personality of the individual. He wrote, "It is true that external and internal conflicts arise through the multiplicity of group affiliations, which threaten the individual with psycholo- gical tensions, or even a schizophrenic break. But it is also true that multiple group affiliations can strengthen 1Angus Campbell and Homer C. Cooper, Group Differences ipiAttitudes and Votes (Ann Arbor: Survey Research Center, university of Michigan, 1956), p. 107. 31 the individual and reinforce the integration of his per— 2 . . . . sonality."5 Political seientists who have employed the term "cross-pressure" since Simmel's time have been more concerned with its consequences for political behavior than for personality integration. They see the consequences of being subjected to political cross-pressures as likely to be withdrawal from politics, apathy, or the assumption of a more moderate position. . . . many individuals belong to several groups, and when these conflict they feel the "cross-pressures" of conflicting group loyalties. One way to escape these cross—pressures is by political apathy--a flight from the conflict. Another, however, is to reduce the conflict by compromise through bargaining.53 Lipset, Trow and Coleman found in union shops that where there was a high degree of consensus on politics, political interest was higher than where the numbers were divided in political allegiance.54 Lazarsfeld and his associates found that where a group's members supported 52Simmel, op. cit., pp. 141-142. 53Robert A. Dahl and Charles E. Lindblom, Politics, Economics, and Welfare (New York: Harper and Bros., 1953L p. 329. Seymour M. Lipset, M. A. Trow, and James S. Coleman, Union Democracy (Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press, 1956L pp. 163-171. 32 opposing political parties, there was a substantial de- crease in interest in the presidential election the closer election-time came. They also found that the more an individual was subjected to cross-pressures, the more his interest in politics declined.55 The Second Multiple Group Membership Hypothesis In most of the research concerned with cross-pressures exerted on the individual with membership in two or more groups having conflicting values, at least one of the groups has been either a categoric or primary group. Both are groups in which membership is not easily relinquished, and the individual is thus under the necessity of responding to the cross-pressure directly by either withdrawing or moderating his values. Extra-curricular activities, however, are neither cate- goric groups nor primary groups; membership is voluntary and temporary, and the option of quitting the group is always available. In addition, the groups are similar to 55Paul F. Lazarsfeld, Bernard Berelson, and Hazel Gaudet, The People's Choice (New York: Columbia University Press, 1948, 2nd edition), p. 62. 33 one another in at least two respects important to this dissertation: (1) they are all non-political, and (2) they are all "expressive" groups, i.e., groups pursuing interests that contribute to the personal satisfaction or enrichment of the individual. As a consequence, we should not expect membership in two or more of these groups to subject the individual to directly political cross-pressures. Rather, if the groups do submit the student to cross-pressures, the pressures are more likely to arise between groups that he joins for his own enrich- ment and those which are career-oriented; e.g., musical societies versus the science club. A third variable also involved in the question of cross-pressures is the factor of personality-—can the par- ticular individual tolerate cross-pressures? An individual may join groups whose interests are different because his personality is such that he can tolerate cross-pressures, or he may gain from his experiences with cross-pressures a greater capacity to tolerate them. As the Simmel theory suggests, membership in two groups pursuing different interests can contribute to the integration of personality. Another kind of student may avoid groups that pursue 34 different interests and join, for example, only athletic groups; or if he joins two groups that pursue different interests and then subjected to their conflicting pres- sures, he may withdraw from one or the other. This dis- sertation does not control for this variation in person- ality. Because of this, caution is necessary and will be applied in the interpretation of any statistical associa- tions discOvered between membership in different types of groups or in groups whose members pursue different interests and the political variables. When statistical associations are found they will be treated as such, and no conclusion will be drawn as to which is the independent and which is the dependent variable. The Simmel theory implies that people who join different types of groups are already capable of tolerating cross- pressures or, if they are able to remain in the groups, will have their personalities modified in such a way that they will be able to tolerate cross-pressures. These individ- uals, when confronted by a potentially threatening insti— tution like politics, should be able to adjust to the con- flict and should, as a consequence, be more interested in politics, more willing to consider alternative political 35 belief systems, and more moderate in their political be- havior. A hypothesis drawn from this implication can be applied to membership in extra-curricular activities: Membership in different types of extra-curricular activities or membership in activities whose other members belong to different types of activities is associated with interest and expectation of future participation in politics, open-mindedness about political belief systems, and weak political party identification. CHAPTER II COMPOSITION OF THE STUDENT BODY The data for this dissertation were collected by means of questionnaires administered to the student body of Holt High School, the only high school in the town of Holt, a suburb of Lansing, Michigan. The Bureau of Social and Political Research of Michigan State University did not select Holt High School according to any specific research criteria but, rather, because it was accessible late in the school year (May, 1960) when other schools in the Lansing area were not. There is at least one advantage in selecting a high school that draws its students from an entire community-- the student body represents accurately the social, religious, economic, and ethnic strata of that community. If the com- munity is homogeneous, the student population will also be homogeneous, which tends to be the case in Holt. As the data reveal, Holt is primarily a middle-class community of skilled and semi-skilled automobile and forge plant workers, the owners and proprietors of small businesses, and local 36 37 professionals.l Most families own or are buying their own homes and own one or more cars of recent manufacture. The town is predominantly Protestant. It contains almost no Negroes and apparently no Asians or Latin Americans. The disadvantage of studying a homogeneous community like Holt is that the researcher cannot expect to find great extremes in either experience or attitude. The find- ings are not likely to offer strong and highly suggestive contrasts. However, the researcher does have this advan- tage: he can regard his test as conservative and assume that any differences he finds in a homogeneous community are worth consideration. If differences do exist in such a homogeneous population, it is likely that even greater differences will be found in a more heterogeneous environment. There is an additional advantage in homogeneity for this particular study, whose concern is with the consequences lHolt is an unincorporated village in a township mainly rural and suburban. Economically it is almost entirely an adjunct of the Lansing industrial complex. Since the Holt community was not treated as a municipal unit by the United States Census, no official data are available. All data presented in this chapter are, therefore, taken from the students' questionnaires. 38 of multiple group membership. Since the experiences of the high school students are so similar, fewer variables have to be controlled in testing for consequences of mem— bership in extra-curricular activities. In May, 1960, Holt High School had 407 students enrolled. The Bureau was able to administer questionnaires to 397 of them who had been attending school regularly. The question- naire's two parts were administered on May 18th and May 20th respectively. On May 25th both parts of the questionnaire were again administered for the benefit of students who had been absent or who had failed to complete the questionnaire when it was first administered. Even so, six students did not complete major portions of the first half, and one failed to complete the major portion of the second half. As a consequence, totals of 391 and 396 will appear in the following distributions: Sex, Grade, and Curriculum The student body of Holt High School included 215 boys and 182 girls of which 103 were ninth graders, 110 were tenth graders, 96 were eleventh graders, and 88 were twelfth graders. They reported taking the following courses or combinations of courses: 39 TABLE l.--Frequency distribution of students' curricula f f Curricula Number Percentage Commercial or Business Education 91 23.3 College Preparatory 154 39.4 General 112 28.6 Vocational Education or Agriculture 12 3.1 Commercial and College Preparatory 16 4.1 Commercial and General 2 .5 General and Vocational Education 1 .3 No Response 6 1.5 Total 391 100.0 Asked if they planned to complete high school, all of the 368 students who answered the question said they planned to do so. The question was so placed in the questionnaire that it could easily be overlooked, so there is no reason to assume that the other 23 would have answered in the negative. When asked about their post-graduation plans, 154 stated an intention either to attend a junior college or a four year college or university. These students were all registered in the college preparatory program. The 40 others reported plans to attend technical or trade schools, join the military, get married, or get a job right away. Occupational Aspirations The questionnaire included four questions on occupa- tional aspiration, following a format developed by Archibald O. Haller of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Michigan State. The first asked the student to put down four occupations he had considered entering. The purpose of the question was to start the student thinking about possible occupations before he went on to the other three, more specific, questions. The second question was intended to elicit a more definite choice; it asked what occupation the student expected to enter. The third question was designed to provide insight into the student's image of his occupational ideal; it asked him to write down the occupation he prefepred to enter. The fourth question, probing a com- bination of expectation and preference, asked what job he preferred to have by age 30. The responses to these questions showed that many students, particularly the ninth graders, had not previously considered their future jobs. All but 22 students were able to mention one job that they had considered, but there was 41 an increasing number of no response answers for the second, third, and fourth considerations. Only 30 percent of the students were able to list four jobs. To the questions asking what job one "expected," ”preferred," and "preferred to have by age 30," the no—response rate was, respectively, 21.7%. 12.8%, and 16.9%. Professional jobs were those most frequently mentioned in answer to all four questions. Of the jobs listed first as those to which the students had given some consideration, 42.8%.were professional. Similarly, 31.0% said that they "expected" to obtain a professional job; 43.8% said that they "preferred" a professional job; and, 28.5% said that they "preferred" a professional job "by age 30." Managerial and skilled labor jobs were the second and third most fre- quently mentioned. In these four questions, each student tended to supply different answers for each of the categories. Hence, there is a good deal of variation in the proportion of answers of any given type of job or occupation. The greatest dif- ference is in the number of times "housewife" was listed in answer to each of the questions. When girls were listing jobs which they had considered, expected to enter, or 42 preferred to enter, "housewife" was rarely given as an answer. However, in the fourth question where the time dimension is introduced, 89 girls (almost half of the female students) reported that they preferred to be housewives by the time they were thirty years old. TABLE 2.--Percentage distribution of students choosing occu- pations which they considered entering, expected to enter, preferred to enter, and preferred to have by the time they were thirty years of age Occupational Aspirations Occupations Con- Ex- Pre- Preferred sidered pected ferred by 30 Professional, technical and kindred workers 42.8% 31.0% 43.8% 28.5% Managers,proprietors, and officials 4.5 3.3 6.8 6.5 Farmers and farm managers 2.5 3.0 3.5 3.3 Clerical and kindred workers 16.4 17.1 12.3 6.3 Sales workers 1.8 1.3 .5 1.3 Craftsmen, foremen and kindred workers 15.4 12.8 9.6 9.3 Operatives and kindred workers 1.0 1.3 1.3 1.5 Private household and service workers 9.8 6.2 8.9 4.0 Housewives .3 2.3 .5 22.4 No response 5.5 21.7 12.8 16.9 Total 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 43 Another difference is in the number of responses to the various questions in which professional jobs are men- tioned. While 42.8% and 43.8% have, respectively, considered and prefer professional jobs, only 31.0% expect to obtain such jobs, and 28.5%»prefer to have professional jobs when they are thirty years old. Haller has found that the time dimension in the fourth question forces a more realistic or mature response, similar to the response to the question regarding jobs one expects to obtain. The difference be- tween preference and expectation of professional jobs for these students, then, is roughly twelve to thirteen percent. The responses to all four occupational aspiration ques— tions are probably somewhat optimistic, in view of the jobs held by the parents or guardians of the students. There are considerable differences even between the students' expected occupations and their fathers' occupations as the distributions below demonstrate: 44 TABLE 3.-—Percentage distribution of students choosing occupations they expect to enter and the occu- pations of their fathers Expected Father's Professional, technical and kindred workers 31.0% 9.1% Managers, proprietors, and officials 3.3 23.2 Farmers and farm managers 3.0 2.8 Clerical and kindred workers 17.1 5.3 Sales workers 1.3 2.5 Craftsmen, foremen, and kindred workers 12.8 27.8 Operatives and kindred workers 1.3 23.7 Private household service workers 6.2 3.3 Housewives 2.3 No response 21.7 2.3 Total 100.0 100.0 It is apparent that some of the differences in per- centage between father's occupations and the job each student expects to get can be accounted for by the sex of the respondents. The girls planning secretarial and cler- ical careers account for the 11.8% difference in the clerical category. The girls planning to enter the teaching 45 profession account for some of the 21.9% difference in the professional category. However, there is still a notice- able rejection of skilled and unskilled labor among these high school students and a surprising rejection of mana— gerial and proprietory jobs. The stated preference for professional jobs is apparently a common one today for high school students, as we have obtained similar responses from high school students in Pontiac and Marshall, Michigan, in other Bureau studies. The distribution of fathers' occupations gives us some information about the community of Holt: it is primarily a "dormitory" community for Lansing's industrial workers. Half the fathers are engaged in skilled, semi-skilled, or unskilled labor jobs. Most of these are jobs held at the Oldsmobile, Drop Forge, and REO Motors plants in Lansing. Many of the managerial, clerical, and sales jobs are also with these corporations or with Lansing stores. On the other hand, the professional and proprietor jobs tend mostly to be local. This suggests a possible stratification within the community between people employed locally and people employed by Lansing firms. 46 Social Class Identification and Other Indicators of Socio-economic status The questionnaire asked students to indicate family status by checking one of the following: upper class, mid- dle class, working class, or lower class. The resulting distribution was as follows: TABLE 4.--Frequency distribution of social class self- identification Social Class Identification Number Percent Upper class 22 5.5 Middle class 258 65.0 Working class 94 23.7 Lower class 11 2.8 No response 12 3.0 Total 397 100.0 This distribution supports the contention that Holt is a rather homogeneous community. Two-thirds of the students identify themselves as middle class, while one quarter see themselves as working class members. There are relatively few who identify with either an upper or a lower class. 47 An interesting comparison can be made between these data and Richard Centers' findings regarding the social class identification of 1100 white males in a national sample survey in 1945.2 Centers set out to test the Marxist proposition that the individual's position relative to the system of production leads him to consciousness of member- ship in a particular social class. Only 2% of his sample responded that they did not know to which class they belonged, which led him to conclude that class conscious- ness did exist in the United States, at least to some extent. In his findings, 3% classified themselves as upper class, 43%»as middle class, 51% as working class, and 1% as lower class. The big differences between the Centers data and the Holt data are in the middle and working class categories. Twenty-two percent more of the Holt students identify with the middle class and 27.3% fewer of them identify with the working class than do the adult males in Centers' survey. Since Centers' findings were confirmed by a national 2Richard Centers, The Psychology of Social Classes (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1949), p. 77. 48 sample survey of adult voters conducted by the Survey Re- search Center in 1956 (with the exception that one-third of the respondents said that they did not think of themselves as belonging to a social class), Holt students apparently have more middle—class consciousness than do national adult samples. As a further indication of socio-economic status, we assigned positions on Otis Dudley Duncan's Socio-economic Index to each student on the basis of his father's occu- pation. This index places the individual objectively, using income and education as the criteria, while Table 4 placed him subjectively. Duncan's index runs theoretically from 0 - 100, but actually the highest score he shows is 96 (dentists and osteopaths). The scores for the fathers of Holt High School students run from 9 to 87. From United States Census data Duncan divided the index into population deciles. For example, the top 10% of the population would have scores between 67 and 96 on Duncan's index. 3Angus Campbell, Philip E. Converse, Warren Miller, and Donald E. Stokes, The American Voter (New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1960), p. 343. 49 TABLE 5.--Frequency distribution of scores on Duncan's socio-economic index by U.S. population deciles. 1 Decile Scores on Socio-economic Number Percent (U.S.) Index 10 67 - 96 43 11.1 9 51 — 65 93 24.0 8 39 — 50 68 17.6 7 31 - 38 31 8.0 6 22 - 30 40 10.4 5 19 - 21 60 15.5 4 15 - 18 40 10.4 3 13 - l4 3 .7 2 7 — 12 9 2 3 1 0 - 6 0 Total 387 100.0 If the distribution for Holt were to parallel that for the United States, there would be 38.7 fathers in each decile. Instead, considerably more of the fathers fell into line ninth, eighth, and fifth deciles and considerably fewer lhTto the first, second, and third deciles than would occur law chance. This means that the students' fathers hold 50 positions requiring more education and paying higher wages than do employed people generally in the United States. These objective findings tend to confirm the subjective social-class identifications of the students. Holt is therefore both in reality and in the minds of the students a middle-class community. Other indicators of socio-economic status support this latter conclusion. The students reported that 334, or 84.1% of their families own their own homes. They live in houses of from two to nine rooms, with an average of 6.1 rooms each. Every student answered that his family owned at least one car, and for 31.4% the car was less than one year old. Over half reported that their families owned a car less than three years old. Religious Affiliation The community of Holt is not only homogeneous in socio-economic status, but there is little variation in its religious affiliations. With the exception of 34 Catholics, (nae Jew, 16 who claimed no affiliation, and 38 who failed t£> answer the question, the remaining 77.6% of the students reported some type of Protestant affiliation. The 51 denominations most frequently listed were Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist, and Nazarene, as the distribution below demonstrates: TABLE 6.--Frequency distribution of religious affiliation. fi 4— Religious Affiliation Number Percent Lutheran 16 4.0% Presbyterian 74 18.5 Methodist 69 17.4 Baptist 35 8.8 Nazarene 13 3.3 Fundamentalist 18 4.5 Protestant (not specified) 88 22.2 Catholic 40 10.1 Jewish 1 .3 Unitarian 1 .3 None or don't know 29 7.3 No response 13 3.3 Total 397 100.0 FT (I) 52 The students report frequent and regular church atten- dance. Almost one-half of the students (47.1%) report that they attend church every week, and another 24.4% report that they go to church once or twice a month. Only 19 students (4.8%) said that they never went to church at all, while the rest reported church attendance for major holidays. In addition to attending church services, 169 students (57.5%) belong to a church choir; 302 (77.2%) attend Sunday School, and 241 (61.6%) belong to a church youth group. These findings, supported by responses to several of the attitudinal questions to be discussed below, indicate that the church was the main center of activity for these students outside of school. Perceived Ethnicity In answer to a question asking the students to fill in their race, nationality, or cultural background, 62.2% ‘write that they were white and American. Another 21.2% did not answer the question, possibly because they did not understand what was meant. One student reported being Negro while five students reported that they were partly Indian. The fifty-six remaining students, 14.3% of the student body, reported European nationality or cultural ties. The 53 nationalities most frequently mentioned were English, Irish, German, French, and Italian. There were no Orientals, Middle Easterners, or even Eastern Europeans. The picture that emerges from this listing is of a community that is racially, ethnically, and culturally homogeneous, for even the students who mentioned ties with Europe tended to list two or three nationalities and did not identify with any of them. Except for two German exchange students, none of the students had been born abroad. Holt, then, is a community homogeneous in race, reli- gion, ethnic background and social class. This means that great differences in attitude and experience are unlikely to be revealed in research conducted here. It means also, however, that the researcher need not introduce many con- trol variables when attempting to probe the consequences of a particular independent variable, like multiple group membership. CHAPTER III THE STUDENT'S POLITICAL ORIENTATIONS The questionnaire which the Bureau of Social and Poli- tical Research used in the Holt study was designed to find out what students thought about politics and how they perceived their relationship to political institutions. Some of the items were developed for other studies by Milton ROkeach, the Survey Research Center, and Daniel Goldrich of our own Bureau.1 Others were written especi- ally for this questionnaire, and all items were pretested in a homeroom in another Lansing area school for their efficacy in discriminating among high school students. Some of the questions that we wanted to answer were: whether students felt politics had any real personal rele- vance, and whether political processes seemed immediate and understandable or remote and complicated; whether they felt that an individual's political activity has any effect 1Milton Rokeach, The Open and Closed Mind (New York: Basic Bodks, Inc., 1960), pp. 71-100; Angus Campbell, Gerald Gurin, and'Warren Miller, The Voter Decides (Evanston, 111.: Row, Peterson & Co., 1954); Daniel Goldrich and Edward W. Scott, "Developing Political Orientations of Panamanian Students," Journal of Politics,XXIII (February, 1961), 849107.7 54 55 on how the government is run in this country; what things they felt motivated people to go into politics; their perceptions of the function of political parties; the relative importance of politics to these students as com- pared to the importance of other institutions or social relationships; the frequency with which they discussed politics; and their use of the mass media on political matters. The items about the personal relevance and under- standability of politics and the items about the individ- ual's influence on governmental activity were included to measure the students' sense of political efficacy. We found that they generally consider politics understandable and regard the citizen's vote as the main factor which government takes into account in deciding what activities it will engage in. We included the items about people's motivations for entering politics to find out whether students perceived politics as an institution wherein people participated for reasons of public interest, or one in which the participants are motivated by self-interest. The findings show that the Holt High School students generally view politics favorably, 56 that is, as an institution in which the public spirited participate. The questions about the function of political parties were designed to find out whether students View p01itical parties -as organizations which mediate between conflicting political interests or as conspiracies which deprive the individual of his voice in public affairs. We found again that their view was generally favorable. Most reported that political parties bring people together so that they can work for their common interests. Only a few felt that political parties existed to benefit a small number of people pursuing their own selfish interests. Responses to the questions about the degree to which the students were interested in politics, their expectation of future participation, the frequency with which they discussed politics, the frequency of their use of the mass media, and their political party identification indicated that their interest was generally low, that they seldom discussed politics, paid only irregular attention to poli- tical topics presented by the mass media, and did not plan to work actively for a political party or run for office. They identified weakly with political parties, if at all. 57 We also found that politics, compared to other institu- tions or social relationships, was of very low salience for these students. Through a factor analysis of all the agree-disagree type of items in the questionnaire having to do with poli- tics, we developed indexes measuring political efficacy, political party appreciation, active interest in politics, and political legitimacy. The arrangement of the items in the indexes differs considerably from that originally intended for analysis when the questionnaire was constructed. For this reason I present the items below in the originally- planned arrangement, with frequency distributions, and will take up the actual construction of the indexes at the end of the chapter. Responses to the_guestionnaire The following items were used to measure whether stu- dents considered politics understandable and whether they felt any degree of efficacy in political matters: "Politics and government are so complicated it is hard to understand What is really going on" and "Voting is the main thing tfliat decides how government is run in this country." We also included comparable items about business and religion. 58 The responses showed that students felt politics and govern- ment were more complicated than either business or religion. Forty-five percent reported agreement with the first item, while only 28.9% agreed with similar statements about business or religion; 41.6% disagreed with the statement that government and politics were complicated. Although less than half of the students regarded politics as under- standable, 72.1% expressed feelings of efficacy in politics by agreeing with the item about voting. Fewer students expressed feelings of efficacy in business affairs--only 64.7%1agreed that the things people buy determine how the business world is run. There was no comparable item about religion. Efficacy in political matters is not related to understanding of politics and government (r = -.04), but both of these items are related to other favorable atti- tudes about politics to be discussed later. People's motives for enteringppolitics Why people go into politics is a question which few of the Holt High School students had previously considered. Anticipating this, we provided various motivations for .Political participation for them to choose from: to serve ‘Uhe community; to represent a particular group; to make 59 personal contacts; to make money; and because they are unsuccessful in other areas. The first two are, of course, public interest responses, the second two are self-interest responses, and the third is probably a measure of cynicism about politics generally. For purposes of comparison, the students were given the opportunity for parallel evaluation of people's reasons for going into two other institutions: business and reli— gion. The percentage of students agreeing with each of the five motives listed for the three institutions are given below: TABLE 7.--Percentage distribution of students assigning motives for entering politics, religion and business. #- j Reasons for Entering Politics Religion Business Public interest responses To serve the community 61.6% 56.6% 61.9% To represent a particular group 59.8 9.8 33.4 Self-interest resppnses To make personal contacts 35.7 21.3 33.6 To make money U) 0 (D (D (I) KO 0 0‘ Cynical response Because they are unsuccess- ful in other areas 10.5 8.4 13.5 60 Politics emerges from the comparison as a slightly more public spirited activity than either religion or business. While the response "to serve the community" is checked by approximately three-fifths of the students for each of the three institutions, the response "to represent a particular group" is checked by three-fifths of the students for politics, by only one-third for business, and by one-tenth for religion. The responses to this item are perhaps biased. Since the students learn in school that the American poli- tical system is founded on the principle of representation, they undoubtedly attribute representation more to political behavior than to behavior in any other type of institution. This possible bias is indicated by the difference in responses to this question and the one discussed next. One-third of the students regarded politics as an institution dominated by the pursuit of selfish interests, which people enter to make personal contacts (35.7%) or make money (30.8%). While 33.6% felt people entered busi- ness to make personal contacts, 90.6% naturally attributed the desire to make money to businessmen. The students attributed less selfish motivation to those entering reli— gion as an institution--personal contacts, 21.3%, and 61 money-making, only 6.8%. The percentage of students who gave cynical responses for the three institutions was low; and varied only slightly: 13.5% for business, 10.5% for politics, and 8.4% for religion. Those who were cynical about politics also tended to regard it as complicated and express the belief that there shouldn't be any political parties. Some interesting results emerge from a consideration of the intercorrelations of these statements about politics. The students who regard politics and government as under- standable also tend to agree that politics is public spirited and disagree that people go into politics to make money (r =-=l49 and -.233, respectively). On the other hand, the students who think politics is complicated regard politics as self-interest-motivated rather than public spirited. Political parties The city machines gave political parties a bad public image for a long time. This image is beginning to dis- appear, but it has not completely vanished. To determine what students think about political parties, we included Six agree-disagree items in the questionnaire which gave 62 possible reasons for the existence of political parties. The distribution of responses indicates that students see in political parties institutions which bring together people with common interests and provide them with a means for fighting for these interests. The responses also demonstrate a student opinion that political parties help voters make up their minds where there are many sides to the issues. Only a few students agree with the more negative statements that political parties exist for the benefit of a few big men or because people can't agree on anything. More than half of the students who agreed to the item about the "few big men" also felt there shouldn't be any political parties. TABLE 8.--Frequency distribution of responses to questions about why pelitiCal parties exist. Number Percent Why Political Parties Exist Agree Agree There is more than one side to every issue 277 69.8% People who believe the same things like to stick together 205 51.6 There has to be some way people can fight for their own interests 203 51.1 They help the voters make up their minds 183 46.1 People can never agree on anything 89 22.4 They give a few big men a chance to get their own way 62 15.6 63 There are some interesting significant intercorrelations of these items. If a student believes that political par- ties exist for the benefit of a few big men, he also tends to agree that political parties exist because people can never agree on anything and that, consequently, they help the voters to make up their minds. Some of the same stu— dents felt government and politics were complicated. On the other hand, students who believe that political parties exist so that people can fight for their own interests agree that there are several sides to every issue and that political parties bring together people of like interests. The intercorrelations are relatively low, about .20, but they are all significant at the .001 level. Although the picture is far from clear, it does indicate the existence of two groups of students--one group that views politics as understandable and motivated by the public interest, who think of political parties as giving people of like interests a chance to work for their common aims, and another group that sees politics as complicated, self—interest motivated, and existing for the benefit of a few "big men" who take advantage of the inability of most people to agree on any- thing or make up their minds as to what they want. This 64 latter group tends to agree that there shouldn't be any political parties, and they register a low interest in politics. Importance of politics Two sets of items were included in the questionnaire to ascertain the relative importance of politics to these students as compared to other institutions and social relationships. One of these sets of items is so weak that it precludes detailed analysis. It asked students to rank politics, religion, their parents, getting married and having a family, career, earning a living, getting more education, and friendships in order of their importance in later life. When compared with institutions of such high personal importance to the lives of these students, politics of necessity ranked last. In fact, it received an average rank of 7.35. The other institutions received average ranks of 3.19 ("my parents") to 4.80 ("getting married and having a family"). The second set of items requires the students to make more meaningful comparisons. It asks them to rank ten items of information about someone they plan to marry as "very important," "somewhat important," "somewhat unimportant," 65 "very unimportant," or "not sure" of its importance. Some of the items of information listed are admittedly of much greater importance to one's marriage than political beliefs, but we expected that others would rank at about the same level. This was not the case. When only the "very impor- tant"2 responses are compared, the political beliefs item was chosen by only 4.2% of the boys and 5.5% of the girls. In fact, 51.9% of the students considered political beliefs to be unimportant or very unimportant in the choice of a marriage partner. This is the only item of the ten re- garded by as many as one-quarter of the students as being this unimportant. These findings should be kept in mind when the ques- tions about the students' expressed interest in politics are discussed below. Although the students may say that they are interested in politics, they certainly do not think that politics is likely to be important to them in their later life. This suggests that all the responses to the questionnaire may be superficial, ideological responses. 2The students tended to regard most of the ten things listed as either "very important" or "somewhat important." As a consequence, the "very important" category discrim- inates best among the responses. 66 This possibility will be discussed in the conclusions to this dissertation. TABLE 9.--Percentage distribution of responses for boys and girls to a check list of things which are very important to know about a person you might want to marry. Things Which Are Very Important To Know Boys Girls About a Person You Might Want To Marry: Beliefs about raising children 56.7% 78.0% Ability to manage money 36.3 68.1 Acceptability to your family 34.9 68.1 Religion 37.2 53.3 Interest in getting ahead financially 31.2 50.5 Acceptability to your friends 20.5 34.1 Family background 22.3 28.6 Interest in getting ahead socially 20.0 20.3 Personal attractiveness 16.7 18.1 Political beliefs 4.2 5.5 Interest in politics When asked directly whether they were interested in politics, the students at Holt High School gave a general indication of interest. More than three-fifths of the students agree with the statement "I am interested in poli- tics." In order to determine the significance of this 67 agreement for future participation in politics, we asked a series of questions about the kinds of such activity they were likely to engage in later. These include questions on intention to vote, whether they would consider jobs with a party or the government,and the possibility of running for public office under certain circumstances. The number and percentage of students giving favorable response to these questions are listed below: TABLE 10.--Frequency distribution of responses to questions about political interest. Political Interest Items Number Percentage When I am old enough, I plan to vote in every election 319 81.6% I am interested in politics 242 61.9 I would consider taking a full-time job with the government 231 59.3 I would consider taking a full-time job with a political party 93 23.5 If I sincerely felt the government was not run right, I would become a candidate for public office 88 22.3 68 Four-fifths of the students agree that they will vote when they are old enough, even when the question specifies "every election." Since students are so well taught in school that voting is an indication of responsible civic behavior, it is rather surprising that 18% fail to express agreement with this statement. There are considerable dif- ferences in the numbers of students willing to engage in other types of political behavior. Many more are willing to consider working for the government than to consider . working for a political party or becoming a candidate for public office. This may indicate that working for the government is seen as a possible career, while working for a political party or being a candidate for public office is not. Only a little more than one—fifth of the students are willing to consider either of the latter. Responses to these job statements differ according to sex. Boys express more willingness to take a government or party job than girls do. However, the sexes are alike in their expressed interest in politics, willingness to vote, and willingness to become a candidate for public office. The word "job" in the two employment statements may be responsible for the differences. The Holt girls are 69 less willing to consider jobs in general; many plan to marry as soon as they finish high school. These items elicit few differences in percentage of favorable response among the four grades in the school. The eleventh and twelfth graders express a greater inten- tion than the ninth and tenth graders, which is probably an indication that voting is the only meaningful political activity most students are likely ever to engage in, and the eleventh and twelfth graders are naturally nearer to voting age. Frequency of political discussion As a further indication of political interest, we asked the students to rank the frequency with which they discuss politics with their fathers, mothers, friends, teachers, and ministers (very often, often, sometime, hardly ever, or never). For comparison with other possible topics of discussion they might have with these same people, the same question was asked about discussion of religious and money matters. Tables 11 and 12 summarize the findings. The former is cross-tabulated by sex, and the latter by grade in school. 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QOCCHHCOUII.©H mqm<8 85 In studying high school students this is hardly possible, since few students engage in any activity, except perhaps in school elections, that can accurately be called political participation. As a consequence, we were forced to ask them about activities that they might consider in the future. Four of these items loaded together on a single factor in the matrix, and these have been combined to form an index of interest and expectation of future participa- tion in politics. The items are: 1. I am interested in politics. 2. I would consider taking a full-time job with the government. 3. I would consider taking a full-time job with a political party. 4. If I sincerely felt the government was not run right, I would become a candidate for public office. Four "agree" responses were considered "very high"; three, "high"; two, ”medium"; one, "low"; and, none, "very low", on this index. Where additional collapsing of these categories was required so that a control variable could be introduced into the statistical analysis, "high" and "very high," and "low" and "very low," were collapsed into two categories. 86 Political party appreciation index In the factor matrix, eight items loaded together which can only be interpreted as measuring satisfaction with the political party institutions in the United States. These items are: Political parties don't belong in national elections. There shouldn't be any political parties. Political parties don't belong in state elections. Political parties don't belong in city elections. People go into politics because they are unsuccess— ful in other areas. 6. Political parties exist because people can never agree on anything. 7. Political parties exist because they give a few big men a chance to get their own way. 8. When I am old enough, I plan to vote in every election. 014:»me "Disagree" responses to the first seven items and an "agree" response to the eighth item were coded as responses that indicated satisfaction with or appreciation of political parties. Seven or eight responses in this direction is called "high"; four, five or six such responses is called "medium"; and none, one, two, or three such responses is called "low" political party appreciation. 87 Index of belief in the legitimacy of political institutions There are four items which loaded together on one fac- tor which seemed to suggest that politics was viewed as being responsive to community and group interests. These items together present a picture of politics as being con— cerned with issues that are many-sided, that people make choices among these issues through their votes, and that these choices are probably made with the interests of the community and particular groups in mind. The negative end of the index could probably be interpreted as measuring cynicism about politics. The items which are included in this index are as follows: 1. Voting is the main thing that decides how government is run in this country. 2. Political parties exist because there is more than one side to every issue. 3. People go into politics to serve the community. 4. People go into politics to represent a particular group. Three or four "agree" responses is classified as "high"; two "agree" responses, as "medium"; and one or no "agree" responses, as "low" on the index of belief in the legitimacy of the political process.‘\ 88 Index of open-mindedness about political belief systems In a factor analysis of 19 items in the questionnaire which had to do with personality characteristics, four of six Rokeach dogmatism items factored together with loadings above .400. The items and their loadings are as follows: +.403 Where religious opinions are concerned we can't compromise with those who disagree with us. +.744 To compromise with our political opponents is dangerous because it usually leads to a betrayal of our own side. +.544 There are two kinds of people in this world: those who are for the truth and those who are against the truth. +.553 The United States and Russia have just about nothing in common. The first and second items are classified by Rokeach under authoritarianism, specifically in the sub-category of authoritarianism which represents "belief in a cause." Rokeach argues that the more closed-minded an individual is, the more he will see authority as absolute and the more he will tend to accept or reject people because they agree or disagree with his belief system. Such individuals are, 12 therefore, unable to compromise. 12Rokeach, op. cit., p. 77. 89 The third item measures intolerance toward the disbe- liever,13 while the fourth measures isolation of one's own belief system from others' belief systems.1 In order to construct an index where the political system, particularly the United States political system, was the referent, the item about religious compromise was eliminated. The index using three items measures open- mindedness about political belief systems. Students who disagree with all three items are classified as "very high" on this index; with two statements, as "high"; with one statement, as "low"; and, with none of the statements, as "very low." Association of the Indexes with Sexy Grade in School, and Social Class Identification In order to determine what control variables should be introduced when the statistical associations between the group membership measures and these indexes are considered, chi—squares were computed between sex, grade in school, and social class identification and these indexes. Tables 17-21 13Ibid., p. 78. l4Ibid., p. 73. 90 are bivariate distributions of the indexes of political efficacy, interest and expectation of future participation in politics, political party appreciation, belief in the legitimacy of political institutions, and open—mindedness about political belief systems. None of the chi-squares computed on the political effi- cacy index are significant. This means that in Holt, poli- tical efficacy is not associated with these variables. This is surprising in light of numerous other studies of adult political behavior which show political efficacy to be related to sex, education, income, status, geographical region of the United States, and urbanization.15 Of course, the range onzany of these variables for Holt High School students is much smaller than for national samplescf adults, which may be a partial explanation for the lack of association. Grade in school, but not sex or social class identifi- cation, is associated with political party appreciation. The direction of association is such that the higher the grade in school, the more favorable the attitudes toward political parties. The explanation for this association may have to 15Lane, 0 . cit., pp. 149-150. 91 do with when government courses are offered in schools. Usually, they are taught in the eleventh and twelfth grades. On the other hand, it may suggest that more eleventh and twelfth grade students have learned the con- ventional responses to these questionnaire items than have ninth and tenth grade students. The index of interest and expectation of future par- ticipation in politics is associated with social class identification, but not with sex or grade. Students who identify with the upper and middle classes claim they have a greater interest and declare themselves more willing to actively participate in politics in the future than do students who identify with the lower and working class. Remmers' data reveal a difference of from 10% to 25% on various interest variables in the same direction.16 These data also established an association between grade in school and political interest which was not borne out in the Holt study. The percentage of students who said that they hardly followed the 1952 presidential election 16The Purdue Opinion Panel, Poll #32 (May, 1952), (Lafayette: Purdue University Division of Educational Reference). 92 campaign at all decreased from 35% for ninth graders to 22%»for twelfth graders.l7 Grade in school also is associated with the index of belief in the legitimacy of potential institutions. Stu- dents in the eleventh and twelfth grades tend to regard political institutions as legitimate more than do ninth and tenth graders. The index of open-mindedness about political belief systems is not associated with sex, grade, or social class identification. As a consequence of these statistical associations, grade in school will be introduced as a control variable where the political party appreciation and belief in the legitimacy of political institutions indexes are involved; social class identification will be introduced as a con- trol variable when interest and expectation of future participation in politics is being considered. 17The Purdue Opinion Panel, Poll #33 (October, 1952), Lafayette: Purdue University Division of Educational Reference). TABLE l7.--Interest and expectation of future participation in politics by sex, grade, identification. and social class Interest and Expectation of Future Participation in Politics Very . . Very Low Low Medium High High Total SEX Boys f0 40.0 59.0 51.0 33.0 20.0 203 ft 42.1 60.7 52.5 33.4 14.2 X2 .11 .05 .04 2.34 Girls f0 37.0 52.0 45.0 28.0 6.0 168 ft 34.9 50.3 43.5 27.6 11.8 x2 .13 .06 .05 .01 2.83 Total £0 77 111 96 61 26 371 x2 = 5.63 .20 < p < .30 GRADE Ninth f0 40.0 70.0 45.0 36.0 14.0 205 and ft 42.5 61.3 53.0 33.7 14.4 tenth X2 .15 1.22 1.22 .16 .01 Eleventh f0 37.0 41.0 51.0 25.0 12.0 166 and f5 34.5 49.7 43.0 27.3 11.6 twelfth x .19 1.51 1.51 .19 .01 Total f0 77 111 96 61 26 371 x2 = 6.17 .10 < p < .20 SOCIAL CLASS IDENTIFICATION Upper or £0 48:0 82.0 68.0 46.0 25.0 260 middle ft 56.0 81.1 67.8 45.0 19.2 X2 1.15 .01 .02 1.78 Lower or fo 28.0 28.0 24.0 15.0 1.0 96 working ft 20.0 28.9 24.2 16.0 6.8 x2 3.21 .03 .07 4.98 Total f0 76 110 92 61 26 365 2 _ x — 11.25 .20 < p < .05 94 TABLE 18.--Political party appreciation by sex, grade, and social class identification. Political Party Appreciation Low Medium High Total SEX Boys f0 52.0 105.0 51.0 208 ft 56.9 96.9 54.2 X2 .43 .68 .19 Girls f0 52.0 72.0 48.0 172 ft 47.1 80.1 44.8 X2 .52 .82 .23 Total f0 104 177 99 380 X2—2.86 .2oN0.: NHO.+ mm0.+ m~0.: mmmqu mmwdu Hv0.+ m00.+ 0H0.+ vmo.: 0H0.: 000.+ m00.: 000.: 0H0.: 5H0.+ 000.: N00.: H00.+ ~00.+ 000.+ vMo.+ v00.+ a0a.: 0H0.: 000.+ .wmmau 000.+ BNO.: mno.: vm0.: drqsxapeaq stenqoettaqux .Hoozum £00m uaom :0 noauw>fiuom 000.+ 000.+ mmMJu 000.- 020.- 000.+ 000.- v~0.+ 000.- 0H0.- -0.+ 400.- 0~0.- 050.- 000.- ”so.- mmo.+ 000.+ 00H.- 00w.- hms.- 00s.. mqun H00.- mmMJH 00“.- AMMJH 00H.+ 0H0.- ANNJH 0H0.- 000.+ 000.- 000.- 000.+ 0H0.- 0H0.+ 000.- 000.- H00.- 00H.- 060.- 0H0.- 000.+ 00~.- 000.+ 0N0.- H00.- 0H0.+ 0N0.- v~0.- 0H0.- 200.- 0H0.+ 0H0.+ H00.- mmo.+ 400.- svo.+ 000.+ m00.- 000.- 000.+ 000.- ~00.- 000.- 0H0.- 000.- mm. mm a w J S uaHDUwuusotmuuxo :H mmwnmuonewe :0 mv0.+ m00.+ 0a0.: 000.+ Hm0.+ H00.+ H~0.+ v~0.: 00H.: 000.: 500.: mm0.+ 0H0.+ vHH.: mmo.- dmmqu Adeu vm0.+ Hm0.: M00.- H0o.+ wmmwnu 000.+ 5N0.I mm0.: mmo.: vmm.+ mm0.: NmH.+ mvH.+ nv0.: h~0.+ wma.+ 000.: VH3 HHO.+ m00.: 000.+ N00.: HHO.+ 0H0.: 0m0.: mHO.: HNO.: 0H0.: mma.: N¢0.+ who.+ ~H0.: 5N0.+ 0m0.: mmmdu NMMAH <00.: 000.+ hm0.: hmH.+ wh0.: Hv0.: hmo.+ mm0.+ mNH.: 000.+ NHO.: VNO.+ 000.+ HNO.: mvo.: 0N0.+ Ketd JOIUBS 00H.+ HVN.: h00.+ vHo.: N00.+ m¢0.: ~v0.: AMH.+ AHH.: ¢~H.: 000.+ 000.+ 0m0.: 000.+ mmo.l 000.+ 000.+ 0No.: ovo.: NMNJH h00.: MMmqn v00.: mm0.: 0N0.: 0N0.: mm0.+ 000.: 000.: hao.+ 0H0.: 6N0.: HHO.+ mv0.: VVS alapeaIJaan puusmeou muc0000000001wnm wo xHuumE mHH.: Hh~.+ -0.: v~o.+ 0v0.+ 0m0.+ 0v0.+ 0v0.: m-.: 0ma.+ v¢0.: 000.: 000.: mNH.: 0N0.+ HHO.: h~0.+ 000.+ 0~o.+ ¢H0.: mmmdu amm4u mv0.+ 0a0.+ H00.+ 0N0.+ h00.+ Hm0.+ m0a.+ 0m0.+ 000.: mm0.+ 050.+ 000.+ Iteqnaxsea 000.+ 00H.- 000.- mmo.+ 0N0.- 040.- 0N0.- 0N0.- Hps.+ 040.+ 00H.+ mmm4u HNH.+ mas.- 0H0.- 000.- 00~.+ Hmo.+ «N0.- 000.- M O O + giapeatlaaqa sanqaiofew HHO.+ mma.: 0m0.+ vm0.: v00.: 000.: HNO.: 0m0.: 0m0.+ 500.: mv0.: mmo.: m00.: N00.+ H~0.: ~00.+ 0N0.: h~0.: 0N0.: 0N0.: 0H0.: 000.: NHO.+ 0N0.: NNNJH Hm0.: Av0.: 000.: N00.+ NMH.+ 50H.: moa.+ 0hH.+ hm0.: 0H0.+ h00.: 000.: Ono.+ mmo.: hH0.: m00.+ mm0.+ Vma.: 000.+ v>0.+ Hh0.: NBO.I v00.+ 000.+ 0H0.+ 000.+ 000.+ 0N0.+ 0H0.+ mmo.+ mvo.+ 0m0.+ floo.+ ~m0.+ wMNUH 4wmflu HNO.+ 000.+ QVH.: vmo.: ANMJH 000.+ moo.: Aziunoo -53013 VNO.: m0~.+ mm0.+ 0H0.+ 000.+ 0v0.+ NNO.: 0N0.: VHO.+ mho.+ amo.+ 0H0.+ N00.+ 000.: mmo.+ 000.: 0~0.+ ~m0.+ mm0.+ 000.+ nvo.+ Hh0.+ 000.: 0N0.+ mmo.+ 000.+ dflMdH dNM4u 050.: m~0.: 000.+ 000.+ mao.+ H00.: silods uemusaxa ~m0.: 000.: 000.: vv0.: 000.+ m00.+ 000.+ 000.: @HO.: 0H0.: mHo.: Nmo.: VHO.: v~0.+ v00.: ~00.: 0v0.+ 000.: 000.: m00.: NHO.: mnO.: 000.: 500.: 000.+ 0¢~.+ 00m.: 000.: mwmdfi mdMJH MMM4H 000.+ Vb0.: m00.+ sniods aAJasaa ma0.+ H00.+ 000.+ 000.- 000.- 000.- mms.- ~00.- 000.- 000.. 000.- 000.- 000.- 000.+ H00.+ 000.+ 000.+ ~00.- 000.+ 000.+ 000.+ smfl.+ 000.+ 000.. was.- «00.. «ms.- 000.+ 0HH.+ 000.+ “yuan .MMM4H mmMJH (x sqzods Kirsxea 2 nsHo 00am uwozo pawn mom scam mfimh asap wucmaom asap Hmsma>uoflosd ucmficum>om mmmau ucoEcum>om uconsum nsHo moaumEmho mumum Hmscc< .Eou Eoum .um:.uh mmHa uoflcsh floau awn o>hommu muopmoHumwzu uaoo hhucsoo:mmouu xosua Hamnuwxman cmanmwum #409500 mammmm Hamnuwxmmn 0>uwmom Hawnmmmm QDHU xuwmum> Hamnu000 >uamnm> Hannumxmmn supmpm> neuumm a 00 coflumuou xmssna>nu.ev mqm