This application is for the support of new research extending and existing data resource on the political attitudes and participation of women over the lifecourse. We propose gathering data from personal interviews conducted by telephone with an existing cohort of women, who were graduates of Bennington College in the 1930's, and who are the surviving participants in the classic Bennington studies carried out by newcomb in the 1930's. We seek to analyze patterns of persistence and change and trace the lifecourse trajectories of measures of political attitudes and involvement among the approximately 400 women we expect to recontact for reinterview. We plan to link data from the reinterview survey to existing data on this cohort of women gathered in the 1930's and 1960's and to examine a number of theoretical issues concerning patterns of change and stability in political attitudes and behavior at three timepoints over the span of about fifty years in their lives. In addition, we propose to investigate the extent to which various patterns of political socialization over the lifecourse are related to changes in political participation and involvement, as well as in occupational history (including career postponement and re-entry), marital history (including marriage, divorce, remarriage and widowhood), and familial history (including children, the """"""""empty nest"""""""" and grandparenthood). The unique virture of the study lies in its ability to trace the development of political attitudes in a relatively large population over virtually the entire course of their adult lives. Our analysis will focus on (a) changes in political orientations over time, (b) the sources of change in political attitudes and behavior in experiences over the lifecourse, and (c) the role of political participation and forms of social support in attitude stability and change. The proposed analysis will include the use of structural equation methods that allow the separation of true individual change from observed changes that are due to unreliability of measurement.
| Krosnick, J A; Alwin, D F (1989) Aging and susceptibility to attitude change. J Pers Soc Psychol 57:416-25 |
