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Objective: We examine factors that explain differences in assessment of police performance among whites, African Americans, Asians, and Latinos, and utilize a subjective social position framework to better understand variation in poor police evaluations. The framework combines previously disparate explanations in the literature. Method: Logit models assess 2016 Collaborative Multiracial Post‐Election Survey data augmented by Census, FBI crime statistics, and Mapping Police Violence Project data to assess respondents' police performance evaluations. Results: Feelings of marginalization, negative perceptions of local context, and involuntary contact with police are more important for predicting poor evaluations of police than objective contextual conditions, including police‐initiated violence. Conclusion: Despite variation across racial and ethnic groups, the subjective social position of individuals goes a long way in explaining individuals' evaluation of police performance. However, African Americans are clearly more critical of law enforcement than other minorities, with at least some of this disparity explained by differences in subjective social position. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many U.S. cities pursue a "human relations" strategy in response to racial and ethnic group conflict. Reflective of Common Ingroup Identity theory, human relations practitioners emphasize a superordinate community identity among residents from different groups for the purpose of "bringing people together" in an effort to improve intergroup relations. Practitioners also encourage intergroup contact to promote positive change in attitudes. Herein, we test the influence of group identity cues and intergroup contact as predictors of perceived intergroup commonality. The findings suggest emphasizing a superordinate community identity increases feelings of commonality in the attitudes of Anglos and Latinos toward one another and toward African-Americans and Asians, while intergroup contact has no significant influence on intergroup attitudes. These findings contribute to the extant literature by simultaneously testing the relative effect of salient group identities on intergroup attitudes and expanding the focus beyond the binary comparison found in most studies of racial–ethnic relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior research has examined how racial and socioeconomic environments influence the racial attitudes of Whites and Blacks. We extend this line of research to explore how local context influences Latinos’ perceived competition with African-Americans. We use the 2006 Latino National Survey and a newly appended contextual data set. We find that having more Black neighbors heightens Latinos’ perceived competition with Blacks, but only when Latinos are economically vulnerable. The presence of African-Americans within Latinos’ neighborhoods is a necessary but insufficient condition for increasing their perceived competition with Blacks; Latinos’ perceived threat is shaped by the combined effect of the neighborhood racial composition and their group’s economic status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the recent visibility of police officers using lethal force against unarmed African American citizens, many Americans are beginning to scrutinize the influence of law enforcement in their communities. In this study, we examine the relationship between contextual exposure to police killings and the perceived effectiveness of different forms of political participation. Our analysis relies upon the 2016 Collaborative Multiracial Post-Election Survey, a multiracial, multiethnic and multilingual online survey. We hypothesize that the perceived effectiveness of electoral and non-electoral participation will be depressed in areas where high numbers of citizens are killed by police officers. Our findings demonstrate living in areas where there are a large number of police killings is related to feelings of inefficacy. African Americans are impacted by police violence more than White and Latina/o Americans. However, the effect of living in areas with high levels of police lethal force diminishes the effect of perceived external efficacy for each group. The evidence implies police violence may foster less faith among citizens in the political process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the determinants and consequences of Latino political representation in the field of K-12 education. The first task is to examine the association between Latino population and the Latino presence on school boards. We then investigate if Latino representation is affected by the electoral structure of school boards, as scholars have reached differing conclusions on whether at-large and ward systems hinder or enhance minority descriptive representation. The next step examines the consequences of Latino representation, specifically whether board membership is associated with the share of Latino school administrators and teachers. The regression results show that Latino population positively affects Latino board representation, but that at-large systems hinder descriptive representation. The primary determinant of Latino administrators is Latino school board membership, and the primary determinant of Latino teachers is Latino administrators. In sum, at-large elections negatively influence Latino educational representation, which produces a ripple effect that ultimately reduces the share of Latino teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much of the protest literature has examined the policy consequences of social protests. Few studies focus on the effect of social protests on public opinion. We examine the impact of the 2006 immigration protests on the saliency of immigration among Latinos. The 2006 Latino National Survey was in the field before and after the protests began, creating a natural experiment. Using these data, we discover protests increased Latinos' perception of undocumented immigration as the most important problem facing Latinos. Furthermore, our analysis shows that the effect of protest was not uniform across the population but rather contingent on individuals' characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article we examine the patterns of gendered representation and related legislative advocacy within Latino delegations to four state legislatures in the Southwest. Most agree that one of the most significant changes in American politics in the post-civil rights era is the increasing election of women and people of color, but there is less agreement about the magnitude, consistency, and impact of this representation. Moreover, little is known about how these patterns vary by state. First, we examine the patterns of gendered and ethnic election in the states of Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas from 1990-2004. We find considerable variation across these states, relative to both women and Latinos, but the presence of Latinas within the Latino/a delegation has noticeably increased across all the states and at a rate that outpaces the increase in women in the legislatures overall. Second, using original survey data supplemented with elite interviews, we explore perceived differences in the representational priorities and related behaviors, issue agendas, and policy successes between Latinas and Latino men. We find a number of similarities but also find distinct differences that reveal Latinas place greater emphasis on representing the interests of multiple minority groups, promoting conflict resolution, and building consensus in both the legislature as a whole and within the Latino caucus. Latinas also are more likely than Latino men to introduce and successfully pass legislation that addresses the issue agenda held by both Latina and Latino legislators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Critics of schools governed by fundamentalist religions are concerned that these schools will not socialize students to the attitudes and values appropriate for citizens of a pluralistic liberal democracy. Among these values are support for democratic norms, political tolerance, moral reasoning and autonomy, duty to community, and acceptance of nontraditional lifestyles. This article examines the empirical basis for the critics' concerns.Using difference-of-means tests and multivariate regression, we compare students in the 10th and 12th grades attending regular public and fundamentalist Christian schools.The 10th-grade comparisons of the two sets of students confirm many of the expectations of critics of fundamentalist schools. By the 12th grade, however, the students in fundamentalist schools have surpassed students in regular public schools on many of the desired attitudes and values, but the fundamentalist school students remain less accepting of nontraditional lifestyles.For the most part, fundamentalist Christian high schools do as well or better than regular public schools in socializing their students to the values appropriate to citizenship in liberal democracies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1970s, Latino politics research has evolved, alternately responding to real-world political events and demographic changes, embracing new and emerging trends in the broader discipline, and offering new insights of its own that contribute to the development of political science. In so doing, there have emerged both an intellectual foundation and a growing body of empirical results, each of which challenges long-held theories and findings in the discipline more broadly. Thus, Latino politics research is central in refining and broadening our understanding of American politics. Immigration, social marginality, and their uncertain status as a racial or ethnic minority make this population unique and raise important obstacles in applying existing interpretations and orthodoxies from the discipline's other traditions to this emerging and rapidly growing segment of American society. The major contributions of this line of inquiry are identified in five key areas: pluralism, group identity and mobilization, political participation, institutions and representation, and assimilation. We conclude with some thoughts regarding how the evolution of American society and its Latino population will pose important questions for future generations of political scientists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

APSA is pleased to announce the next editorial team for the American Political Science Review. The new team, to be located at the University of North Texas, will begin their term on July 1, 2012. Their Editorial Statement follows. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]