Ruth S. Jones

State Campaign Fund Raising: Targets and Response

The extent to which campaign contributors are solicited by, and respond to, four different fund-raising techniques--direct mail, telephone, personal face-to-face, and group appeal--are reported. Data from contributors in two states indicate that there is significant variation in the use of all four modes of solicitation, and each apparently reaches and motivates somewhat different populations. The data also suggest that many contributors give without being asked while the cadre of new contributors for whom fund-raising solicitations are important is not very large. The study indicates that further research on the use of different fund-raising technologies may provide an important link in understanding the financing of political campaigns.

State Polls: Promising Data Sources for Political Research

This research note suggests that the image of statewide polls as erratic bases for election predictions belies their reliability and usefulness as sources of information for basic scientific research. Data on partisanship from three different polling organizations, over a seven-year period, for fourteen different states, are presented to indicate that there is minimal interorganization variation among the three sources of data, a remarkable stability of sample estimates of partisanship within states through time, and a strong correlation between the state poll data and external validating indicators.

News Media and Politicization: American Youth 1969-1975

This study analyzes change in news media usage among thirteenand seventeen-year-old students, compares TV, radio, and newspaper attention levels, and considers changes in news topics of interest to teenagers during the Vietnam-Watergate era. The data are from national surveys conducted by the National Assessment of Educational Progress in 1969 and 1975. By 1975, American youth of both age groups watched less TV news, listened to less radio news, and read fewer newspapers than their age counterparts six years earlier. Although news media usage decreased during this period, those who used the news media in 1975 were as likely to recall news topics of interest as media users in 1969. Few students use more than one medium to obtain political news but no single source dominates their attention. Cross-sectional analysis indicates that news media usage is only weakly related to levels of political awareness. Among the three media considered, the linkage is strongest between TV news and information levels.

Institutional Change and Socialization Research: The School and Politicization.

It is time that those concerned with political socialization, especially as it relates to the role of the educational system, break away from the constraints of past research; it is time that they seize the opportunities to integrate this very specific focus of research with the broader concerns of social science. One way to accomplish this is to look at educational systems and schools as social institutions both experiencing and fostering social change. The widely held assumption that educational systems are undergoing significant change has generated considerable controversy, debate, and research within the social science community. Yet there appears to be

Racial Patterns and School District Policy

Local control allows flexibility, but in this sample of school systems there was only limited adaptation as the systems were desegregated.

School Administrators and Compliance: Public Aid to Parochial Education.

The study asks, “How do public school administrators respond when the state legislature breaks sharply with tradition and mandates that the resources of the state textbook fund be made available to private as well as public school students?” Two measures of compliance were devised that revealed a low level of service to parochial schools in general, and considerable variation in the service provided by the twenty-five districts studied. The author argues that the failure to achieve full compliance does not seem to be specific to the church/state issue, to the antagonistic position of the public school officials, or to the peculiarities of educational politics. Rather, implementation of this legislative mandate simply reflects, and is constrained by, the conditions that influence public policy implementation in all areas. To increase compliance with school laws, and in this case, public school service to the private sector, the author suggests that concerned and involved publics both recognize and apply political strategies that have proved effective in non-educational policy areas.

Issue Saliency, Opinion-Holding, and Party Preference

notes that, in order to have any issue meaning for the vote decision, citizens must be aware of the issue’s existence, have an opinion, and perceive one party as being closer to his position.2 After applying these criteria to the citizens’ knowledge on a large number of issues, the Survey Research Center group concludes &dquo;that articulation between party program, party member opinion, and individual political decision is weak indeed.&dquo; 3 At the same time, the authors note that their tests might be unrealistic and, at one point, allude to a different perspective on the entire problem. After examining the differences between racial groups on a question involving discrimination, they remark: &dquo;Thus within parts of the population selected so as to isolate peculiar values, we find evidence of heightened intensity of opinion on issues relevant to those values; ... It is at these pressure points that issues are most