Cultural Conflict and Racial Attitudes

• In Event: 378 - Open Refereed Roundtable Session II
  In Refereed Roundtable: B. Table 02. Race, Culture, and Conflict

Abstract

Cultural conflict in U.S. society is strongly linked to the fundamentalist/evangelical movement. The present paper probes links between the themes of that movement and racial attitudes. Are people who oppose non-marital sexuality, gender non-conformity, secularism, abortion, women's rights, and other cultural conflict issues also likely to be racially prejudiced, to feel resentful toward racial minorities, and to resist efforts to promote racial equality?
Research done over 30 years ago showed that Christian faith and practice had a modest curvilinear association with ethnic prejudice, with high and low religiosity being associated with low prejudice. However, these earlier studies were concerned with the impact of religious dimensions on prejudice, not with the broader cultural issue of how the social and moral concerns of religious people may be associated with racial views. Furthermore, traditional racial prejudice and anti-Semitism that were the focus of those studies have significantly declined or been transformed over time. We examine this question with data from the American National Election Studies and the General Social Survey. Results show that among whites in the U.S., there is a robust positive association between dimensions of cultural conflict and racial resentment and other racial attitudes including old fashioned racism and racial policy attitudes that is not explained by social structural dimensions such as age, gender, region, urban residence, and socioeconomic status. Indicators of religious affiliation and belief are also associated with racial attitudes, but these associations are weaker, and neither explain, nor are explained by, cultural conflict variables.

Authors

• Michael Hughes, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

• Steven A. Tuch, George Washington University