Politics and Planning: A National Study of American Planners by Michael Lee Vasu

Author:Michael Lee Vasu [Vasu, Michael Lee]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, General
ISBN: 9780807813423
Google: j_ZjDwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 3987684
Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
Published: 1979-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Table 4.1

Comparison of Planners and U.S. Public on Subjective Political Ideology

Subjective Political Ideology‡ Planners (%) Public* (%)

Liberal 50.5 30.5

Moderate 40.3 40.0

Conservative 9.2 29.5

Total 100.0 100.0

(772) (1410)

[dmax = .203; (p < .001)]†

* Source: NORC, National Data Program for the Social Sciences, Spring 1974 General Social Survey. Original variable format collapsed for presentation. See Appendix D, Data Sources.

† Kolmogorov-Smirnov Two Sample Test. The test statistic (two-tailed) employs the maximum absolute difference between two cumulative distributions as a criterion for determining the probability that two samples have been drawn from populations with the same theoretical distribution. See Myles Hollander and Douglas A. Wolfe, Nonparametric Statistical Methods.

‡ The exact question was: “Generally, how would you characterize your own political beliefs?”

In essence, the original working hypothesis must be modified to incorporate these considerations. While part of the variance between planners and the U.S. public on the dimension of subjective political ideology may be due to the differential levels of education, income, and social class among planners, we contend statistically significant differences will persist after controlling for all potential intervening variables.

Table 4.2 compares planners with the U.S. public controlling for level of education. The differences between planners and the public are replicated after the introduction of the control variable. Since virtually all planners have at least a bachelor’s degree (99.9%), only one level of education appears for them. As might be anticipated on a priori grounds, planners share a certain commonality with that segment of the population possessing a college education. However, all planners are significantly more liberal and conversely less conservative than the U.S. public controlling for any of the three levels of education. Nonetheless, as Table 4.2 indicates, while controlling for education minimizes the magnitude of the differences between planners and the college-educated public with respect to the proportion who perceive themselves as liberals to 8.8% (50.5% versus 41.7%), the converse is also true. Planners are decidedly less conservative (9.2% versus 35.5%) than that segment of the population sharing similar educational levels. The foregoing indicates that the variance between planners and the public on subjective political ideology is not the simple effect of the obvious differences in educational levels that exist between planners and the public. Moreover, rather than being the simple function of education, the differences between planners and the public remain statistically significant after controlling for education.

Table 4.3 presents a comparison of planners and the U.S. public controlling for income.37 Again only one level of the control variable appears for planners. Statistically significant differences between planners and the public persist after controlling for level of income. Planners are more likely to identify themselves as liberal and decidedly less likely to identify themselves as conservative than Americans of all three income levels.

The last control variable to be examined is subjective social class. Subjective social class identification, like education and income, has been isolated as a useful predictor in voting behavior, and is found generally to correlate with other forms of political behavior as well.38 For these reasons, it is imperative to assess the independent effect of subjective social class on political ideology, as presented in Table 4.

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