Social Class and Attitudes about Inequality: A Data-Driven Learning Guide

Application

For this exercise, you will be exploring the relationship between social class (as measured by income and education), and three measures of attitudes about inequality, using crosstabulation.

In this dataset, total combined family income is divided into 23 categories--too many for a useful crosstabulation. So, we recoded it into four categories and called the new variable "NEWINC".

Attitudes toward Income Inequality in the U.S.

Take a look at the variable INCGAP, which contains answers to the question, "Differences in income in America are too large. Do you agree or disagree?" Answers to this question are coded Strongly Agree (1), Agree (2), Neither Agree nor Disagree (3), Disagree (4), and Strongly Disagree (5). We recoded INCGAP into three categories: Agree or Strongly Agree (1), Neither Agree nor Disagree (2), and Disagree or Strongly Disagree (3). We also excluded "can't choose," "not applicable" and "not ascertained" (responses 8, 0, and 9) and called the new variable "LARGEGAP."

Now look at the crosstab of LARGEGAP with NEWINC. Do people in the different income brackets hold the same views about the level of inequality in the US?

Attitudes toward Rewards for Efforts

Next take a look at the variable REWRDEFF, which contains answers to the question, "In America people get rewarded for their effort. Do you agree or disagree?" Answers to this question are coded Strongly Agree (1), Agree (2), Neither Agree nor Disagree (3), Disagree (4), and Strongly Disagree (5). We recoded REWRDEFF into three categories: Agree or Strongly Agree (1), Neither Agree nor Disagree (2), and Disagree or Strongly Disagree (3). As with the previous exercise, we excluded responses outside this range and called the new variable "EFFORTPAYS."

Look at the crosstab of EFFORTPAYS with NEWINC. How strong is the level of support for the idea that effort pays? Do all income groups support the idea to the same extent?

Attitudes toward Self-Reliance

Now consider the variable CARESELF, which contains answers to the question, "Those in need have to learn to take care of themselves and not depend on others. Do you agree or disagree?" Answers to this question are coded Strongly Agree (1), through Strongly Disagree (5). We recoded CARESELF into three categories (as described above) and called the new variable "SELFRELIANT."

Run a crosstab ofSELFRELIANT with NEWINC. How would you interpret the results?

So far in this exercise, income has been used to measure of social class. Now repeat the analyses using education instead of income. Education will be measured by the variable DEGREE, which measures the highest degree earned, ranging from less than high school, through graduate degree. We recoded DEGREE into three categories: High school or less (1), Junior college through bachelors degree (2), and graduate degree (3), and called the new variable "DEGREECAT."

Now re-run your analyses of LARGEGAP, EFFORTPAYS, and SELFRELIANT, using DEGREECAT in the column field. What do you find? How do your results differ from the previous models? How are they similar?

Note: The online data analysis system (DAS) used on this site uses a system called Survey Documentation and Analysis (SDA), developed and maintained by the Computer-assisted Survey Methods Program (CSM) at the University of California, Berkeley. Documentation for DAS/SDA can be found on their Web site.

Goal & Concept - Dataset - Application - Interpretation & Summary - Bibliography