Anti-scientific attitudes can impose substantial costs on societies. Can schools be an important agent in mitigating the propagation of such attitudes? This paper investigates the effect of the content of science education on anti-scientific attitudes, knowledge, and choices. The analysis exploits staggered reforms that reduce or expand the…

Purpose: One of the most consistent predictors of punitiveness is education, with more educated individuals expressing less punitive sentiments. While much of the earlier research focused on the level of education, some researchers have recently begun to look more closely at the nature of that education such as examining the effect of specific…

The associations between social and psychological influences and environmental attitudes, intentions and behavior have generated considerable interest, both in the fields of environmental behavior and of environmental education. We use the 2010 General Social Survey (GSS) to study these associations and expand the scope of earlier studies by…

In the 1990s, sociologists began to rethink the failure of utilization models to explain whether and why individuals accessed formal treatment systems. This effort focused on reconceptualizing the underlying assumptions and processes that shaped utilization patterns. While we have built a better understanding of how social networks structure…

Examines the effect of skin color differences in African-American society and their influence on social and political attitudes. Finds color stratification persists but makes little difference in social and political attitudes, except that darker-skinned Blacks were found to be consistently less civil libertarian. (DM)

Understanding attitudes toward marriage at older ages is increasingly important as young adults delay marriage and large numbers of people return to the marriage market after divorce. This study examines age differences in the desire to marry among singles age 18 to 69 years, taking into account selection into marriage. Using data drawn from the…

Acceptance of childlessness has increased since the 1970s, with women reporting greater acceptance than men. Using the National Survey of Families and Households (1987-1988; N = 10,648) and the General Social Survey (1994; N =1,395), we examined this gender gap as it relates to both structural and sociocultural factors, including religion, gender…

According to General Social Survey data from 1977 to 1989, Whites increasingly tend to cite lack of individual motivation as the cause of the Black-White socioeconomic gap; consequently there is little support at present for policies designed to improve the condition of Blacks. (DM)

Data from the General Social Survey for 1977 (n=1,303) and 1991 (n=430) are used to examine the stability of attitudes toward abortion and women's roles. Findings support the hypothesis that public attitudes toward discretionary abortion and nontraditional sex roles are discrete but correlated sets of attitudes that remained stable from 1977 to…