Bellringer Name the four labels given to people based on economic policy and personal conduct…

Learning Objectives: Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved List the sources of our political attitudes and indicate which are the most important. Explain why there are crosscutting cleavages between liberals and conservatives in this country. Assess the significance of race, ethnicity, and gender in explaining political attitudes. Define political ideology and give reasons why most Americans do not think ideologically. Summarize the liberal and conservative positions on the economy, civil rights, and political conduct. Discuss the new class theory as an explanation for changes in attitudes. Analyze why this change is causing strain in the political party system.

Terms to know: Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved *conservative A political ideology that, although changing in meaning, adheres to the following principles and practices: on economic matters, it does not favor government efforts to ensure that everyone has a job; on civil rights, does not favor strong federal action to desegregate schools and increase hiring opportunities for minorities; and on political conduct, does not favor tolerance toward protest demonstrations, legalizing marijuana, or protecting the rights of the accused.

Terms to Know: Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved *liberal A political ideology that, although changing in meaning, adheres to the following principles and practices: on economic matters, it favors government efforts to ensure that everyone has a job; on civil rights, it favors strong federal action to desegregate schools and increase hiring opportunities for minorities; and on political conduct, it favors tolerance toward protest demonstrations, legalizing marijuana, and protecting the rights of the accused. *libertarians An adherent of a political ideology that is conservative on economic matters and liberal on social issues. The ideology advocates a small, weak government.

Terms to Know: Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved *Elite People with a disproportionate amount of a valued resource. Did you know??? President Obama made less money the year he was elected president than he did the previous year??? Mr. Obama and first lady Michelle Obama reported a taxable income in 2008 of $2,656,902, paying $855,323 in federal taxes and $77,883 in their home state of Illinois. ***For 2007, the Obamas reported a significantly larger taxable income of $4,139,965.

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved *gender gap Differences between the political views of men and women. *John Q. Public The average man or woman on the street, often portrayed by cartoonists as befuddled.

Terms to know: Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved *Middle America A phrase coined by Joseph Kraft in a 1968 newspaper column to refer to Americans who have moved out of poverty but who are not yet affluent and who cherish the traditional middle-class values. *populists An adherent of a political ideology that is liberal on economic matters and conservative on social ones. It believes the government should reduce economic inequality but regulate personal conduct.

Terms to know: Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved *religious traditionThe values associated with the traditional major religious denominations in the United States: Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish. In general, Catholic families are somewhat more liberal on economic issues than white Protestant ones, while Jewish families are much more liberal on both economic and social issues than either Catholics or Protestants. *sampling errorThe difference between the results from two different samples of the same population. This difference in answers is not significant and its likely size can be computed mathematically. In general, the bigger the sample and the bigger the differences between the percentage of people giving one answer and the percentage giving another, the smaller the error.

Terms to know: Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved *silent majority A term referring to people, whatever their economic status, who uphold traditional values, especially against the counterculture of the 1960s. *social status (or socio-economic status, SES) A measure of one’s social standing, obtained through such measures as years of education, income, and occupation.

5 Public Opinion – Analyze Tables 5.1 – 5.5 from your text.

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved Figure 5.1: Whites in the South Leaving the Democrats Source: ICPSR National Election Studies, Cumulative Data File,

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved Figure 5.2: Ideological Self-Identification, Source: The American Enterprise (March/April 1993):84, Robert S. Ericson and Kent L. Tedin, American Public Opinion, (New York: Longman, 2001), 101, citing surveys by CBS/New York Times.

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved Table 5.2: The Gender Gap: Differences in Political Views of Men and Women

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved Table 5.3: The Changing College Student

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved Table 5.4: African American and White Opinion

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved Table 5.5: Changes in Racial Opinion