Age and Attitudes about the Rights of Homosexuals: A Data-Driven Learning Guide

Goal & Concept

Goal

This guide will examine trends in attitudes regarding the rights of homosexuals in the United States from the early 1990s through 2007. Frequencies, crosstabs, and comparison of means tests will be used for the analyses.

Concept

The issue of same-sex marriage is just one of several that help to illustrate the ongoing struggle of homosexuals to claim equality in civil rights. Part of the problem faced by homosexuals rests in levels of public support for certain legal rights for homosexuals. We will consider attitudes toward three different rights: same-sex marriage; legal adoption of a child by homosexuals; and homosexuals being allowed to teach in public schools.

If attitudes toward homosexual rights vary according to age, especially if it appears that there is a linear relationship, then it is possible that there is either a cohort effect (people born about the same year having similar attitudes) or a learning/socialization effect (attitudinal change over the life course). Because this dataset includes many successive samples (surveys taken annually from 1982-2007), we may be able to distinguish between a cohort effect and a learning effect. Furthermore, by including year of survey as a variable in our analyses, we will be able to see if there are any general trends in attitudes toward the rights of homosexuals.

Examples of possible research questions about attitudes toward the rights of homosexuals:

• Why do younger people seem to be more supportive of rights for homosexuals?
• Why does the general population seem more supportive of some rights of homosexuals while being less supportive of other rights?
• What are the similarities/dissimilarities between the gay rights movements, the women's movements, and the civil rights movements?
• What is the relationship between education and support for same-sex marriage?

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