Did Motor Voter Work?

Background/Context Sociopolitical development (SPD) refers to the processes by which an individual acquires the knowledge, skills, emotional faculties, and commitment to recognize and resist oppressive social forces. A growing body of scholarship has found that such sociopolitical capabilities are predictive in marginalized adolescents of a number of key outcomes, including resilience, academic achievement, and civic engagement. Many scholars have long argued that schools and educators have a central role to play in fostering the sociopolitical development of marginalized adolescents around issues of race and class inequality. Other scholars have investigated school-based practices for highlighting race and class inequality that include youth participatory-action research, critical literacy, and critical service-learning. Objective of Study The present study sought to add to the existing scholarship on schools as opportunity structures for sociopolitical development. Specifically, this study considered the role of two different schooling models in fostering adolescents’ ability to analyze, navigate, and challenge the social forces and institutions contributing to race and class inequality. Setting The six high schools participating in the present study were all urban charter public high schools located in five northeastern cities. All six schools served primarily low-income youth of color and articulated explicit goals around fostering students’ sociopolitical development. Three of these high schools were guided by progressive pedagogy and principles, and three were guided by no-excuses pedagogy and principles. Research Design The present study compared the sociopolitical development of adolescents attending progressive and no-excuses charter high schools through a mixed methods research design involving pre-post surveys, qualitative interviews with participating adolescents and teachers, and ethnographic field notes collected during observations at participating schools. Results On average, adolescents attending progressive high schools demonstrated more sig-nificant shifts in their ability to analyze the causes of racial inequality, but adolescents attending no-excuses high schools demonstrated more significant shifts in their sense of efficacy around navigating settings in which race and class inequality are prominent. Neither set of adolescents demonstrated significant shifts in their commitment to challenging the social forces or institutions contributing to race and class inequality. Conclusions Both progressive and no-excuses schools sought to foster adolescents’ commitment to challenging race and class inequality, but focused on different building blocks to do so. Further research is necessary to understand the pedagogy and practices that show promise in catalyzing adolescents’ analytic and navigational abilities into a powerful commitment to collective social action—the ultimate goal of sociopolitical development.

Critics have suggested that deliberative democracy reproduces inequalities of gender, race, and class by privileging calm rational discussion over passionate speech and action. Their solution is to supplement deliberation with such forms of emotional expression. Hall argues that deliberation already inherently involves passion, a point that is especially important to recognize in order to deconstruct the dichotomy between reason and passion that plays a central role in reinforcing inequalities of gender, race, and class in the first place.

Instead of demonstrating the existence of environmental race and class inequalities at one point in time, social scientists must now do historical studies that explain how such inequalities are generated over time. The authors use 1990 census and 1989 Environmental Protection Agency Toxics Release Inventory data to document environmental race and class inequalities in Santa Clara County, California. They then use earlier censuses and historical land use data to generate a series of demographic and industrial maps spanning 30 years, 1960 to 1990. They also consult existing local histories, planning reports, and other documents to interpret the maps and describe the county's economic, residential, and demographic development. They find that the environmental inequalities observed in 1990 were not the result of intentional siting decisions. Rather, they were the result of the combination of several “normal” processes: economic boosterism, unregulated development, and racial and ethnic differences in education, occupation, and income.

Previous articleNext article FreeContributorsPDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreMark Anthony Hoffman is assistant professor of sociology at Stanford University. His research uses computational methods to understand how language, identity, and social structure have changed in England and the United States over the past 300 years. He received his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 2019.Sanaz Mobasseri is assistant professor of management and organizations and (by courtesy) sociology at Boston University. Her research investigates race and gender inequalities in organizations using field experimental and computational methods. She earned her Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley’s Haas School of Business.Mary C. Brinton is the Reischauer Institute Professor of Sociology and the director of the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies at Harvard University. Her current research focuses on the determinants of historically low birth rates in the postindustrial world, with particular attention to the role played by gender inequality.Eunsil Oh is assistant professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She holds a Ph.D. in sociology from Harvard University and her research focuses on gender, work, and family. Using comparative lens, her current projects explore how labor markets, welfare systems, and gender norms shape individual- and couple-level understandings of work and family.Christine Leibbrand is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Sociology at the University of Washington. Her research focuses on internal migration within the United States, segregation, neighborhood attainment, and racial/ethnic stratification. She has published several journal articles, including “The Legacy of the PSID in Understanding Patterns of Migration and Residential Mobility” (with Kyle Crowder).Catherine Massey is a senior economist at Welch Consulting’s Bryan Texas office. Prior to joining Welch Consulting, she was assistant research scientist in the Population Studies Center at the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research. While at the University of Michigan, she conducted research on record linkage and data quality, as well as research on intergenerational contributors to inequality and outcomes of the Great Migration.J. Trent Alexander is the associate director of the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research and a research professor in the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan. His research focuses on historical demography, record linkage, and large-scale data infrastructure.Stewart Tolnay is S. Frank Miyamoto Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of Washington. His research has focused on the history of racial violence in the American South and the Great Migration of southerners to the North and West. He is the author of The Bottom Rung: African American Family Life on Southern Farms (University of Illinois Press, 1999) and a coauthor with E. M. Beck of A Festival of Violence: An Analysis of Southern Lynchings, 1882 to 1930 (University of Illinois Press, 1995).Argun Saatcioglu is associate professor of education (ELPS) and (by courtesy) sociology at the University of Kansas. He studies racial/ethnic and class inequalities in K–12 education, school responses to equity initiatives, and the broader politics of educational policy and governance.Thomas M. Skrtic is the Williamson Family Distinguished Professor of Special Education at the University of Kansas. His research interests include disability, race, and class inequalities in school and society, education and special education policy and politics, and critical policy inquiry. Previous articleNext article DetailsFiguresReferencesCited by American Journal of Sociology Volume 125, Number 1July 2019 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/704720 © 2019 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

This article analyzes the conditioning exercised by class inequality on racial inequality in income between whites and non-whites (the latter including both pardos, or mixed race, and pretos, or blacks) in Brazil. The study uses linear regression techniques aimed at unveiling the moderating effect of class categories in the attenuation or exacerbation of race effects on personal income. There is a racial gap favoring whites in nearly all class categories, but its effect is significantly moderated by class condition. The racial gap in income is higher among middle-class positions and especially among managers. The proletarian segments per se display the lowest racial gaps in income.

Middle-class whites' explanations for racial inequalities in health can have a profound impact on the type of questions addressed in epidemiology and public health research. These explanations also constitute a subset of white racial ideology (i.e., racism) that in itself powerfully affects the health of non-whites. This study begins to examine the nature of attributions for racial inequalities in health among university students who by definition are likely to be involved in the research, policy, and service professions (the upper middle class). Investigation of the degree to which middle-class whites attribute racial inequalities in cardiovascular health (between themselves and African Americans, American Indians, or Asian Americans) to biological, social, or lifestyle factors reveals that whites tend to attribute their own health to lifestyle choice and to biology rather than to social factors. These results suggest that contemporary middle-class whites' "self-serving" explanations for racial inequalities in health are comprised of two beliefs: implicit biologism (race is an attribute of organisms rather than a social relation) and liberal belief in self-determination, choice, and individual responsibility--some of the core lay beliefs of the worldview that sustains neoliberal capitalism. Contemporary white middle-class explanations for racial inequalities in health appear to include assumptions that justify class inequality. Liberal approaches to racism in public health are bound to miss a key component of racial ideology that is currently used to justify racial and class inequalities.

It is now widely acknowledged that, in the sociology of education, as indeed in many other areas of sociology [1], sexual differentiation has been grossly neglected. In the enormous literature that has grown up in the post-war years demonstrating the existence and persistence of educational inequalities and searching for their explanation, the emphasis has been almost wholly on either social class or, particularly in the United States, race. It is true that girls have usually, if not always, been included in such studies as a normal part of the sample. Similarly, the documentation of social class and racial inequalities as well as regional variation has often thrown up evidence on sexual inequalities as well. There have also been times, as in the case of the Plowden Report as early as 1967, when special emphasis has been laid on the wastage of ability amongst girls [2]. The charge of neglect should not, therefore, be taken too far. Nevertheless, it remains true that little attention has been paid to sex as a principle of educational discrimination and that little effort has been made to search for the explanation of such discrimination as can be found. An examinaton of any standard text-book in the field will demonstrate this clearly enough. So will a look at the most prominent theorists working in this area [3]. This is not the place to consider in detail the reasons for this neglect, but perhaps most fundamental of all has been the absence of any serious questioning of the pattern of sexual differences whether in education or elsewhere. Indeed this topic perhaps more than any other demonstrates the truth of the observation that changes in direction within a discipline are due to new questions as much as, if not sometimes more than, new answers. Just as social class inequalities seemed 'natural' to nineteenth century observers, rooted as they were believed to be in the nature of the working classes and in the nature of society, so sexual inequalities in the educational and the occupational systems seemed 'natural' to those who accepted a Parsonian interpretation of the position of women in the family and society [4]. To those inclined towards a conflict model of society, and particularly to those influenced by Marxism the central position given to class relationships within these

Despite the powers that parents are endowed with regarding governance of schools in South Africa, they are not yet given sufficient room and space to deliberate on issues of school governance; instead they are still excluded by some teaching staff who deny them (explicitly or implicitly) from taking part in crucial decisions affecting education of their children. There are still issues excluding parents from participation in school governing bodies, namely: the lack of clear demarcation between the roles of the teaching staff and those of the school governing body (SGB), lack of time, lack of confidence from some parents, transport problems which result in non‐attendance of SGB meetings by some parents, poor communication of information, lack of training which results in lack of knowledge of the Act and roles and responsibilities, the language barrier, and the high turnover rate of governors as parents have to leave the SGB as soon as his/her child leaves the school. The findings of this research partly concur with Karlsson, who also found that SGBs perpetuate rather than prevent the apartheid‐era inequalities of race, gender and social class. Despite these discrepancies, the study found that SGBs operate according to the general intentions of the South African Schools Act 84 of 1996 and also help spread democracy in the school and to the wider society of South Africa.

This article provides an evidence-based review of the growing field of food justice, which seeks to understand how inequalities of race, class and gender are reproduced and contested within food systems. Analyzing a database of peer-reviewed articles and books related to food justice in the US context (n = 200), we find that food justice is a highly interdisciplinary research area organized around three central axes: social movement activism, the development of alternative food practices, and analyses of inequalities in conventional and alternative food systems. Especially since 2011, the rate of new scholarship has increased, along with increased attention from policymakers and the public to the issues of inequality in the food system. This field has developed somewhat independently of work in the physical sciences quantifying and evaluating the sustainability of local food systems, instead focusing more on social science concepts such as historic and present-day inequalities and the role of policy. However, there is room for convergence, especially as our analysis points to agro-ecology and land tenure as areas of growing interest. Considering this recent growth and potential for collaboration with physical scientists, we reflect on the development of the field to date by characterizing the field of food justice research, asking what is missing, and suggesting new directions.

The 2024 presidential election unfolded under extraordinary circumstances—the mid‐campaign withdrawal of an incumbent president, the nomination of the first woman of color by a major party, and the reelection of a president defeated 4 years earlier. Yet the outcome revealed an electorate that looked much like 2016 and 2020. Drawing on ANES, CES, and exit poll data, we argue that the Trump era has produced a “stuck” electorate that is deeply polarized, highly nationalized, and resistant to change. Race remains the most durable cleavage, with Democrats reliant on African Americans and Republicans dependent on whites. Latinos and Asians shifted sharply toward the GOP, while gender, education, and income reinforced enduring divisions. Trump's enduring brand crystallized these alignments and nationalized electoral competition, reducing local distinctiveness and constraining opportunities for realignment. The Trump era, we conclude, is best understood not as a period of partisan transformation but one of consolidation, with important implications for 2028 and beyond.

We present a political sociological analysis of the social bases of support for Donald Trump during the critical phase of his victory in the Republican nominating contest. In particular, we test the widely voiced hypothesis that a critical source of Trump’s support in the GOP primaries came from his appeal to working class and/or downwardly mobile and insecure middle class voters responding to a “populist” message. Drawing on both the ANES January 2016 pilot survey and exit poll data, we argue that Trump’s rise to the GOP nomination was facilitated by a broad-based appeal that centered on voters who have levels of education and income that are well above national and primary state averages.

Elections are essential in democracies, with accurate predictions benefiting stakeholders. Traditional forecasting methods encounter bias and interpretability challenges. Machine learning enhances prediction accuracy, necessitating transparency for public trust. This study employs machine learning and Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) to improve election prediction accuracy and interpretability. The research assesses three models Recurrent Neural Networks (RNN), Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost), and Multinomial Logistic Regression (MLR) using exit poll data from three South African elections, sourced from the Centre for Social Change at the University of Johannesburg. SHAP (SHapley Additive exPlanations) is utilised to identify significant predictors and elucidate feature impacts on model predictions. Counterfactual analysis evaluates the robustness of the model and the sensitivity of prediction to changes in critical characteristics. Performance matrix like precision, recall, F1-score, and AUC-ROC are optimised with varying hyperparameters. A consistent data distribution across training, testing, and validation sets ensures reliable comparative analysis. Early stopping with a $0.4 \%$ patience threshold prevents overfitting by stopping training when validation performance stagnates. The results indicate that the RNN outperformed others with 75% precision and AUC-ROC, establishing it as the most effective model. MLR exhibited balanced performance (precision: $\mathbf{6 3 \%}$, AUC-ROC: $\mathbf{6 9 \%}$), proving reliable for stable classifications, while XGBoost efficiency was inferior. SHAP analysis revealed key socioeconomic and demographic predictors, including type of housing, age, employment status, and ethnicity. Counterfactual analysis underscored prediction sensitivity to changes in age, employment, and housing status. These findings highlight the efficacy of ML and XAI in electoral forecasting, providing information for political strategy and fostering transparent, data-driven decision-making.

Most agree that voting in presidential general elections is largely contingent on the evaluations of the candidates, issues, and parties. Yet inpresidential primary elections the determinants of voter choices are less clear. Partisanship is inconsequential, information about candidate personalities and policy positions is scarce, and a fourth factor, expectations, may influence voters. In this paper, we reconsider the influence ofpolitical issues in presidential primaries. We argue that past work has not adequately considered how issues matter in primary elections. Primaries are intraparty affairs, and the political issues that typically divide the parties are not very relevant in primaries. Instead, we focus on the policy issues each candidate chooses to emphasize in their quest for the nomination, which we call policy priorities. With data gathered about media coverage of the presidential contenders in the 1988 primaries, and using exit poll data from the 1988 Super Tuesday primaries, we show that issues, as policy priorities, do matter in presidential primary elections. This research also implies that primary campaigns matter, since information concerning the policy priorities of the candidates reaches the intended audience.

It is expected that women who run for office will receive significantly more support from women relative to male voters. However, evidence for this gender affinity has been mixed. In fact, recent experimental studies, and elections, have not found it to exist for female candidates. To test the presence of gender affinity, we examine the case where voters have the opportunity to elect the first female mayor in a major US city. Using exit poll data, we find that women (and men) who cited gender as an important quality in choosing a candidate were significantly more likely to support the female candidate, but only a small portion of voters felt gender was the most important candidate quality. For the majority of women, we find that there were confounding factors, such as uncertainty of the female candidate’s leadership skills and issue positions, which prevented her from gaining the majority she needed to win.

This innovative study examines the development of institutional child care from 1878 to 1929, based on a comparison of two “sister” orphanages in Pittsburgh: the all-white United Presbyterian Orphan's Home and the all-black Home for Colored Children. Drawing on quantitative analysis of the records of more than 1,500 children living at the two orphanages, as well as census data, city logs, and contemporary social science surveys, this study raises new questions about the role of child care in constructing and perpetrating social inequality in the United States.The book explores how working families shaped institutional child care. The term “child care” is used to mean assistance with the daily labor of caring for children; and specifically in the case of orphanages, parents' tactic of placing their children temporarily in institutions with the intention of retrieving them after a relatively short time. The book argues that the development of institutional child care was premised upon and rife with gender, race, and class inequities—these persistent ideologies had consequences for the evolution of social welfare and modern child care.