Pub Date : 2025-09-18DOI: 10.1016/j.ssresearch.2025.103257
Jun Yin , Jia Miao , Xiaogang Wu
This article investigates the impacts of homeownership on political participation in Hong Kong, using two waves of data from the Hong Kong Panel Study of Social Dynamics ([HKPSSD], 2015, 2017/2018). Probit regressions show that, compared with renters, homeowners are more likely to engage in both electoral voting and social protests. To address the potential selection bias of homeownership, we employ the lottery results under the Home Ownership Scheme (HOS) as an instrumental variable, and reveal that the results for electoral voting persist. However, no evidence suggests that homeownership increases the likelihood of participating in social protests. Mediation analysis further demonstrates that the association between homeownership and voting behavior is partially explained by residential stability and civic association ties. Our research contributes to understanding the social and political consequences of homeownership in in a unique institutional and cultural setting, which bears significant implications for housing policies to promote homeownership in Hong Kong and beyond.
{"title":"Homeownership and political participation: The case of Hong Kong","authors":"Jun Yin , Jia Miao , Xiaogang Wu","doi":"10.1016/j.ssresearch.2025.103257","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ssresearch.2025.103257","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This article investigates the impacts of homeownership on political participation in Hong Kong, using two waves of data from the Hong Kong Panel Study of Social Dynamics ([HKPSSD], 2015, 2017/2018). Probit regressions show that, compared with renters, homeowners are more likely to engage in both electoral voting and social protests. To address the potential selection bias of homeownership, we employ the lottery results under the Home Ownership Scheme (HOS) as an instrumental variable, and reveal that the results for electoral voting persist. However, no evidence suggests that homeownership increases the likelihood of participating in social protests. Mediation analysis further demonstrates that the association between homeownership and voting behavior is partially explained by residential stability and civic association ties. Our research contributes to understanding the social and political consequences of homeownership in in a unique institutional and cultural setting, which bears significant implications for housing policies to promote homeownership in Hong Kong and beyond.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48338,"journal":{"name":"Social Science Research","volume":"132 ","pages":"Article 103257"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2025-09-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145104541","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-09-16DOI: 10.1016/j.ssresearch.2025.103240
Paul Y. Yoo , Thurston Domina , Andrew McEachin , Leah Clark , Hannah Hertenstein , Andrew M. Penner
Virtual charter schools are increasingly popular, yet there is little research on the long-term outcomes of virtual charter students. In this research note, we link statewide education records from 9th grade students in Oregon with information on criminal legal contact and IRS records containing earnings information housed at the U.S. Census Bureau to provide evidence on how virtual charter students fare as young adults. Virtual charter students have substantially worse high school graduation rates, college enrollment rates, bachelor's degree attainment, employment rates, and earnings than observationally similar students in traditional public schools, but similar rates of contact with the criminal legal system. Although there is growing demand for virtual charter schools, our results suggest that students who enroll in virtual charters may face negative long-term consequences.
{"title":"Virtual charter students have worse labor market outcomes as young adults","authors":"Paul Y. Yoo , Thurston Domina , Andrew McEachin , Leah Clark , Hannah Hertenstein , Andrew M. Penner","doi":"10.1016/j.ssresearch.2025.103240","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ssresearch.2025.103240","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Virtual charter schools are increasingly popular, yet there is little research on the long-term outcomes of virtual charter students. In this research note, we link statewide education records from 9th grade students in Oregon with information on criminal legal contact and IRS records containing earnings information housed at the U.S. Census Bureau to provide evidence on how virtual charter students fare as young adults. Virtual charter students have substantially worse high school graduation rates, college enrollment rates, bachelor's degree attainment, employment rates, and earnings than observationally similar students in traditional public schools, but similar rates of contact with the criminal legal system. Although there is growing demand for virtual charter schools, our results suggest that students who enroll in virtual charters may face negative long-term consequences.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48338,"journal":{"name":"Social Science Research","volume":"132 ","pages":"Article 103240"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2025-09-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145104717","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-09-16DOI: 10.1016/j.ssresearch.2025.103256
Sandra N. Morgenstern
In the policy of migration information campaigns Western governments aim to influence perceptions on irregular migration in potential sending countries. While information campaigns are called the ‘ethical part’ of Western border politics, critical research literature questions their legitimacy due to anxiety-inducing messages, and the (lacking) credibility of Western implementers in the Global South. Drawing on dual-process theories from Psychology, and literature on credibility and emotions in politics, I expect that information provision moderated by anxiety and/or credibility are equally performing an information updating by enhancing the perception of the prevalence of irregular migration, but via different theoretical frames. To disentangle the independent and interdependent effects, I conducted a field experiment with two independent treatments in a real European migration information campaign reaching 2612 Nigerians. The overall information-effect results reveal an increased perception of irregular migration prevalence in ones surrounding, and a decrease in commonality of irregular migration when attributed to oneself. The moderators, credibility and anxiety, achieve similar levels per moderator and jointly but for distinct outcomes. If the credibility of the sender is assured, the perception of general topic prevalence is increased and only slightly changes the self-estimate, while anxiety-triggering enhances the self-attribution, i.e. own commonness of irregular migration and less so a general prevalence perception. The results support the two distinct paths of the theoretical dual-process framework. Additionally, by providing causal and multi-treatment evidence, this study contributes to a normative debate on the practical implementation of a migration policy, its purpose, and techniques in information transmission more broadly.
{"title":"Credibility and/or anxiety - The moderators of political information on migration","authors":"Sandra N. Morgenstern","doi":"10.1016/j.ssresearch.2025.103256","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ssresearch.2025.103256","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In the policy of migration information campaigns Western governments aim to influence perceptions on irregular migration in potential sending countries. While information campaigns are called the ‘ethical part’ of Western border politics, critical research literature questions their legitimacy due to anxiety-inducing messages, and the (lacking) credibility of Western implementers in the Global South. Drawing on dual-process theories from Psychology, and literature on credibility and emotions in politics, I expect that information provision moderated by anxiety and/or credibility are equally performing an information updating by enhancing the perception of the prevalence of irregular migration, but via different theoretical frames. To disentangle the independent and interdependent effects, I conducted a field experiment with two independent treatments in a real European migration information campaign reaching 2612 Nigerians. The overall information-effect results reveal an increased perception of irregular migration prevalence in ones surrounding, and a decrease in commonality of irregular migration when attributed to oneself. The moderators, credibility and anxiety, achieve similar levels per moderator and jointly but for distinct outcomes. If the credibility of the sender is assured, the perception of general topic prevalence is increased and only slightly changes the self-estimate, while anxiety-triggering enhances the self-attribution, i.e. own commonness of irregular migration and less so a general prevalence perception. The results support the two distinct paths of the theoretical dual-process framework. Additionally, by providing causal and multi-treatment evidence, this study contributes to a normative debate on the practical implementation of a migration policy, its purpose, and techniques in information transmission more broadly.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48338,"journal":{"name":"Social Science Research","volume":"132 ","pages":"Article 103256"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2025-09-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145104540","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-09-06DOI: 10.1016/j.ssresearch.2025.103251
Maurice Gesthuizen, Michael Savelkoul, Peer Scheepers
Levels of exclusion of ethno-religious immigrants among the majority population vary strongly across European countries. This study addresses the question whether these variations are related to differences in immigrant integration policies and welfare policies across Europe. We argue that both policies need to be considered simultaneously, given the development of integration policies within historical frameworks of pre-existing welfare regimes, and expect that policies may set intergroup norms discouraging exclusion of ethno-religious immigrants. Additionally, we hypothesize that exclusionism-reducing impact of governmental policies might be weaker for people in economic precarious positions as compared to their more privileged counterparts, because people in such precarious positions face more intergroup competition. Using data from the European Social Survey, enriched with information on immigrant integration policies and welfare policies related to the labour market, our findings show that exposure to more welcoming integration policies is substantially and significantly negatively associated with exclusion of ethno-religious immigrants. However, this is not the case for welfare policies: although we also find a negative association with exclusion of ethno-religious immigrants, it is non-significant. Moreover, we find that the negative association between exposure to more welcoming integration policies and exclusion of immigrants is equally strong for people in precarious situations versus those in non-precarious situations.
{"title":"Excluding entire ethno-religious immigrant groups at the borders of European countries: Integration policies versus welfare policies","authors":"Maurice Gesthuizen, Michael Savelkoul, Peer Scheepers","doi":"10.1016/j.ssresearch.2025.103251","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ssresearch.2025.103251","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Levels of exclusion of ethno-religious immigrants among the majority population vary strongly across European countries. This study addresses the question whether these variations are related to differences in immigrant integration policies and welfare policies across Europe. We argue that both policies need to be considered simultaneously, given the development of integration policies within historical frameworks of pre-existing welfare regimes, and expect that policies may set intergroup norms discouraging exclusion of ethno-religious immigrants. Additionally, we hypothesize that exclusionism-reducing impact of governmental policies might be weaker for people in economic precarious positions as compared to their more privileged counterparts, because people in such precarious positions face more intergroup competition. Using data from the European Social Survey, enriched with information on immigrant integration policies and welfare policies related to the labour market, our findings show that exposure to more welcoming integration policies is substantially and significantly negatively associated with exclusion of ethno-religious immigrants. However, this is not the case for welfare policies: although we also find a negative association with exclusion of ethno-religious immigrants, it is non-significant. Moreover, we find that the negative association between exposure to more welcoming integration policies and exclusion of immigrants is equally strong for people in precarious situations versus those in non-precarious situations.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48338,"journal":{"name":"Social Science Research","volume":"132 ","pages":"Article 103251"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2025-09-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145003547","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-08-13DOI: 10.1016/j.ssresearch.2025.103234
Jon Overton, Gideon Cunningham
Dominant accounts of partisan polarization in political science and psychology posit that misunderstandings and mutual animosity drive conflict between Democrats and Republicans. Despite such high-profile tension, many Americans remain disengaged from politics. Using Identity Theory in sociology, we account for both rising polarization and persistent disengagement by turning attention to internal party dynamics. Partisan politics operates differently, depending on the political makeup of commonplace fixed social groups like sets of friends and coworkers. Partisan politics creates relatable common ground when social groups are politically homogeneous but creates tension in politically diverse small groups. Under these conditions, social similarity fosters more political activity generally (both normative and extreme), while deterring political engagement among those in politically diverse groups. Analyses of an original quota-sampled survey and a representative panel survey support expectations. Political homogeneity strengthens political identities, which produces more role-typical behaviors and extreme attitudes. These findings show how the desire to preserve relationships increases polarization, while also maintaining political disengagement.
{"title":"Groups activate identities; identities activate behavior: How political homogeneity breeds extremism and apathy in American politics","authors":"Jon Overton, Gideon Cunningham","doi":"10.1016/j.ssresearch.2025.103234","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ssresearch.2025.103234","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Dominant accounts of partisan polarization in political science and psychology posit that misunderstandings and mutual animosity drive conflict between Democrats and Republicans. Despite such high-profile tension, many Americans remain disengaged from politics. Using Identity Theory in sociology, we account for both rising polarization and persistent disengagement by turning attention to <em>internal</em> party dynamics. Partisan politics operates differently, depending on the political makeup of commonplace fixed social groups like sets of friends and coworkers. Partisan politics creates relatable common ground when social groups are politically homogeneous but creates tension in politically diverse small groups. Under these conditions, social similarity fosters more political activity generally (both normative and extreme), while deterring political engagement among those in politically diverse groups. Analyses of an original quota-sampled survey and a representative panel survey support expectations. Political homogeneity strengthens political identities, which produces more role-typical behaviors and extreme attitudes. These findings show how the desire to preserve relationships increases polarization, while also maintaining political disengagement.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48338,"journal":{"name":"Social Science Research","volume":"132 ","pages":"Article 103234"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2025-08-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144827540","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-08-12DOI: 10.1016/j.ssresearch.2025.103239
Dieuwke Zwier
Many national education systems have schools that adopt distinctive elements like alternative pedagogical concepts or specialty themes. This “school profiling” is suggested to drive school segregation by socio-economic status (SES). Since most existing research has focused on U.S. charter schools and lacks large-scale student-level data, the connection between profiling and SES-based school sorting remains unclear. This study addresses this gap by focusing on the case of the Netherlands, a country known for its high school autonomy and freedom of school choice. I use population-wide register data from over 110,000 students (aged 11–12), linked to novel data on school profiling. The findings reveal social stratification in access to schools with distinctive profiles, with higher-SES students having access to a more diverse pool of schools. Furthermore, conditional logit models show evidence of self-sorting by SES for some profiles: for instance, schools with progressive learning concepts are less popular among lower-SES students, while higher-SES students are comparatively less likely to choose labor market-themed schools. These SES disparities, however, are modest and not always in the expected direction. Overall, findings underscore the role of access disparities in shaping SES-based sorting, next to differential preferences for schooling.
{"title":"Be true to your school: School profiling and school sorting by socio-economic status","authors":"Dieuwke Zwier","doi":"10.1016/j.ssresearch.2025.103239","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ssresearch.2025.103239","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Many national education systems have schools that adopt distinctive elements like alternative pedagogical concepts or specialty themes. This “school profiling” is suggested to drive school segregation by socio-economic status (SES). Since most existing research has focused on U.S. charter schools and lacks large-scale student-level data, the connection between profiling and SES-based school sorting remains unclear. This study addresses this gap by focusing on the case of the Netherlands, a country known for its high school autonomy and freedom of school choice. I use population-wide register data from over 110,000 students (aged 11–12), linked to novel data on school profiling. The findings reveal social stratification in access to schools with distinctive profiles, with higher-SES students having access to a more diverse pool of schools. Furthermore, conditional logit models show evidence of self-sorting by SES for some profiles: for instance, schools with progressive learning concepts are less popular among lower-SES students, while higher-SES students are comparatively less likely to choose labor market-themed schools. These SES disparities, however, are modest and not always in the expected direction. Overall, findings underscore the role of access disparities in shaping SES-based sorting, next to differential preferences for schooling.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48338,"journal":{"name":"Social Science Research","volume":"132 ","pages":"Article 103239"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2025-08-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144827541","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-08-04DOI: 10.1016/j.ssresearch.2025.103235
Thomas A. DiPrete , Meir Yaish , Evgeny Saburov
The strength and structure of linkages between educational outcomes and occupations affects both educational and labor market outcomes, but the characteristics and consequences of these linkages can vary systematically across population groups defined by race, ethnicity, religion and gender. A comparison of linkage structure for Arab and Jewish workers, for Mizrachi and Ashkenazi workers, and for male and female workers in Israel reveals that while strong linkages between educational credentials and occupational destinations are often advantageous, particularly for professionally oriented fields of study in tertiary education, these pathways can also restrict opportunity and differently so when labor markets are organized on gender and or ethnic lines. The educational and occupational marginal distributions, the strength of associations between education and occupation, and labor market flexibility allowing non-normative pathways from educational to occupational outcomes all play a role in defining the pattern of group advantage and disadvantage in the Israeli case.
{"title":"Within-country differences in school-work linkages: The case of Israel","authors":"Thomas A. DiPrete , Meir Yaish , Evgeny Saburov","doi":"10.1016/j.ssresearch.2025.103235","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ssresearch.2025.103235","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The strength and structure of linkages between educational outcomes and occupations affects both educational and labor market outcomes, but the characteristics and consequences of these linkages can vary systematically across population groups defined by race, ethnicity, religion and gender. A comparison of linkage structure for Arab and Jewish workers, for Mizrachi and Ashkenazi workers, and for male and female workers in Israel reveals that while strong linkages between educational credentials and occupational destinations are often advantageous, particularly for professionally oriented fields of study in tertiary education, these pathways can also restrict opportunity and differently so when labor markets are organized on gender and or ethnic lines. The educational and occupational marginal distributions, the strength of associations between education and occupation, and labor market flexibility allowing non-normative pathways from educational to occupational outcomes all play a role in defining the pattern of group advantage and disadvantage in the Israeli case.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48338,"journal":{"name":"Social Science Research","volume":"132 ","pages":"Article 103235"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2025-08-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144766780","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-08-02DOI: 10.1016/j.ssresearch.2025.103232
Yuxin Zhang , Mario Quaranta , Moris Triventi
Motivated by ongoing academic debates about whether education functions as a causal driver or a proxy in shaping sociopolitical outcomes, this study investigates the impact of educational tracking on the development of political interest among youths. Specifically, we examine whether the transition into academic and vocational upper-secondary school tracks affects students’ political interest. We applied a difference-in-differences framework to estimate the causal effect of track placement, drawing on individual-level panel data from the German National Educational Panel Study. The longitudinal design allowed us to observe students at multiple time points: before, during, and after their transition into upper-secondary education. We found that students exhibited different levels of political interest before their upper-secondary tracks, and the academic track had no substantive nor significant causal effect on the development of political interest. We conclude that educational tracking at the upper-secondary level did not actively contribute to the differentiated development of individual political interest and had negligible impact on altering preexisting disparities; its role in shaping civic dispositions might be more limited than often assumed. We call for more research in different contexts and at earlier stages of political socialization.
{"title":"Is political interest tracked in schools? Evidence from Germany","authors":"Yuxin Zhang , Mario Quaranta , Moris Triventi","doi":"10.1016/j.ssresearch.2025.103232","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ssresearch.2025.103232","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Motivated by ongoing academic debates about whether education functions as a causal driver or a proxy in shaping sociopolitical outcomes, this study investigates the impact of educational tracking on the development of political interest among youths. Specifically, we examine whether the transition into academic and vocational upper-secondary school tracks affects students’ political interest. We applied a difference-in-differences framework to estimate the causal effect of track placement, drawing on individual-level panel data from the German National Educational Panel Study. The longitudinal design allowed us to observe students at multiple time points: before, during, and after their transition into upper-secondary education. We found that students exhibited different levels of political interest before their upper-secondary tracks, and the academic track had no substantive nor significant causal effect on the development of political interest. We conclude that educational tracking at the upper-secondary level did not actively contribute to the differentiated development of individual political interest and had negligible impact on altering preexisting disparities; its role in shaping civic dispositions might be more limited than often assumed. We call for more research in different contexts and at earlier stages of political socialization.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48338,"journal":{"name":"Social Science Research","volume":"132 ","pages":"Article 103232"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2025-08-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144757722","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-08-02DOI: 10.1016/j.ssresearch.2025.103237
Micah H. Nelson
A large body of scholarship explores the various ways in which public opinion has become partitioned along party lines in the United States. This research broadly shows that Democrats and Republicans have grown more likely to disagree about many social and political issues, as evinced by increasing partisan differences in responses to attitude questions on surveys over time. This paper argues that this work may be grounded in an assumption that no longer holds water: that survey items measure the same constructs equivalently when administered to Democrats and Republicans. Rather, due to recent changes in the nature of partisan identity, members of the two parties have developed distinct processes of meaning-making, such that they can be prompted with the same survey questions, yet understand them in dissimilar ways that inhibit the comparability of their responses. This paper evaluates this hypothesis using measurement invariance tests of a wide range of scales administered on surveys conducted between 1992 and 2021. Results show that many attitude questions collected on recent surveys do not measure the same constructs equivalently among Democrats and Republicans. These findings suggest that estimates of the changing gap in social and political attitudes between the parties may be biased by partisan meaning-making, which differentially affects the measurement qualities of survey items in each group. More broadly, they imply a growing cultural divide between the parties, demarcated by a diminishing set of shared meanings about the world.
{"title":"Surveying the political divide: Public opinion in the era of partisan meaning-making","authors":"Micah H. Nelson","doi":"10.1016/j.ssresearch.2025.103237","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ssresearch.2025.103237","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>A large body of scholarship explores the various ways in which public opinion has become partitioned along party lines in the United States. This research broadly shows that Democrats and Republicans have grown more likely to disagree about many social and political issues, as evinced by increasing partisan differences in responses to attitude questions on surveys over time. This paper argues that this work may be grounded in an assumption that no longer holds water: that survey items measure the same constructs equivalently when administered to Democrats and Republicans. Rather, due to recent changes in the nature of partisan identity, members of the two parties have developed distinct processes of meaning-making, such that they can be prompted with the same survey questions, yet understand them in dissimilar ways that inhibit the comparability of their responses. This paper evaluates this hypothesis using measurement invariance tests of a wide range of scales administered on surveys conducted between 1992 and 2021. Results show that many attitude questions collected on recent surveys do not measure the same constructs equivalently among Democrats and Republicans. These findings suggest that estimates of the changing gap in social and political attitudes between the parties may be biased by partisan meaning-making, which differentially affects the measurement qualities of survey items in each group. More broadly, they imply a growing cultural divide between the parties, demarcated by a diminishing set of shared meanings about the world.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48338,"journal":{"name":"Social Science Research","volume":"132 ","pages":"Article 103237"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2025-08-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144757723","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Estimates of intergenerational educational mobility are generally computed using a combination of self- and proxy-reports of one’s and one’s parents’ education. Such reports are easily collected, offering a cost-effective alternative to collecting multiple self-reports or register data. However, the bias that proxy-reports could introduce in the measurement of intergenerational educational mobility is rarely assessed. Our study fills this gap and assesses how reliable people are when they report their parents’ or their child’s educational attainment. We find that both parents and children tend to underestimate the educational distance between themselves and their family members, thus inflating estimates of educational reproduction. This trend is larger when children act as proxy-reporters. Another limitation of using children’s proxy-reported information is the number of missing answers, which is lower when parents are asked to proxy-report their child’s education. In a simulation exercise, we establish that the bias introduced by proxy reports is not negligible, with self-reported intergenerational regression coefficients being 9% higher when a proxy-report is used.
{"title":"Who do they think you are? Inconsistencies in self- and proxy-reports of education within families","authors":"Chloé Lavest , Mathieu Ferry , Mathieu Ichou , Patrick Präg","doi":"10.1016/j.ssresearch.2025.103225","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ssresearch.2025.103225","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Estimates of intergenerational educational mobility are generally computed using a combination of self- and proxy-reports of one’s and one’s parents’ education. Such reports are easily collected, offering a cost-effective alternative to collecting multiple self-reports or register data. However, the bias that proxy-reports could introduce in the measurement of intergenerational educational mobility is rarely assessed. Our study fills this gap and assesses how reliable people are when they report their parents’ or their child’s educational attainment. We find that both parents and children tend to underestimate the educational distance between themselves and their family members, thus inflating estimates of educational reproduction. This trend is larger when children act as proxy-reporters. Another limitation of using children’s proxy-reported information is the number of missing answers, which is lower when parents are asked to proxy-report their child’s education. In a simulation exercise, we establish that the bias introduced by proxy reports is not negligible, with self-reported intergenerational regression coefficients being 9% higher when a proxy-report is used.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48338,"journal":{"name":"Social Science Research","volume":"132 ","pages":"Article 103225"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2025-07-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144738732","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
扫码关注我们
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：
京公网安备 11010802042870号