1. CORRELATES OF ATTITUDES FAVORABLE TO RACIAL DISCRIMINATION AMONG HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS.
- Author
-
Chadwick, Bruce A., Bahr, Howard M., and Day, Robert C.
- Subjects
- *
RACE discrimination , *HIGH school student attitudes , *PREJUDICES , *ASSIMILATION (Sociology) , *CONFORMITY , *INFLUENCE , *PARENTAL influences , *SOCIAL isolation - Abstract
The article presents information on a study related to the attitudes of the high school students towards racial discrimination in the U.S. The results highlight the importance of negative stereotypes in influencing discriminatory attitudes of white high school students, as indicated by the direct association between tendency to discriminate and both prejudice and perceived nonconformity. An attempt was made to keep the prejudice and nonconformity scales independent, but considerable overlap remains. This overlap resulted in prejudice eliminating non- conformity from the multiple regression equation. A second and related finding is the importance of parental influence in shaping the perceptions and attitudes of high school students. Parents' pressure to discriminate showed a strong zero-order correlation with tendency to discriminate and was the second most important variable in the multiple regression equation. Furthermore, the significant correlation between parents' pressure to discriminate and prejudice suggests that parents are important agents in the transmission of stereotypes, which in turn may then lead to attitudes favorable to discrimination and ultimately to discriminatory behavior. A third major finding is that anxieties concerning future interaction with blacks play an important role in producing attitudes favorable to racial discrimination.
- Published
- 1971