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Political Ideology's Association with African American Perceptions and Experiences

Moses, Natasha
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1684940266185416

Abstract Details

2023, PhD, University of Cincinnati, Education, Criminal Justice, and Human Services: Criminal Justice.
African Americans have always had diverse opinions about different facets of American life, including how to solve America’s problems. Diversity of ideology and solutions has persisted in the decades since the Civil Rights Era. Many Blacks report perceiving and experiencing racial discrimination in a variety of areas, including housing, employment, education and criminal justice system sentencing. Conversely, there is a notable segment of the African American community who are satisfied because they do not perceive or experience racial discrimination in America and these areas. However, there is a dearth of research into what is contributing to these divergent views within this community. This dissertation addresses this gap by assessing whether political ideology – particularly political conservatism -- predicts divergent perceptions and experiences related to African American experiences in America, broadly speaking, and the criminal justice system specifically. Given prior research, I expect to find that political ideology will be a significant predictor across outcomes, with Black conservatives holding more favorable views of America, race relations and the criminal justice system. Gender, age, income and education will be used as control variables because they can also predict experiences and perceptions on these topics. Results support both hypotheses. Ideology was a robust predictor of experiences and perceptions regarding America, race relations and the criminal justice system. The robustness remained strong even when controlling gender, age, income, and education. The most important implication is that ideology trumps race. Consequently, Blacks should be portrayed as an ideologically diverse group with a wide range of views on those three areas. The second implication is that Black conservatives resemble other conservative Americans. This is particularly true of holding favorable perceptions in those three areas. These more favorable perceptions persisted even when accounting for the impact of sex, age, income and education. Although conservatism did not usually predict experiences, those it did predict were usually favorable. The final implication is that there is a group of Black conservatives whose positive experiences and perceptions relating to America, race relations and the criminal justice system are being ignored. Future research should recognize that Blacks hold complex perceptions and have a diversity of experiences that can be predicted by their self-reported ideology, with Black conservatives generally resembling American conservatives due to reporting more favorable perceptions and experiences. Limitations must also be addressed. The use of cross-sectional design implies our results could reflect Black perceptions and experiences only in early 2019, rather than overall. Another limitation is that we could not assess the impact of additional demographics, such as region and voter registration status. However, the results reported here are consistent with prior research. The same applies to some of the results for age and gender. This increases confidence that these limitations did not impact results. Ultimately, future research should use longitudinal design that includes additional demographics and assessment of each individual scale item.
John Wright, Ph.D. (Committee Chair)
Jay Kennedy, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
Francis Cullen, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
Sandra Browning, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
131 p.
Criminology
African American; Black; opinion; political ideology; criminal justice; race relations

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Moses, N. (2023). Political Ideology's Association with African American Perceptions and Experiences [Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1684940266185416

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Moses, Natasha. Political Ideology's Association with African American Perceptions and Experiences. 2023. University of Cincinnati, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1684940266185416.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Moses, Natasha. "Political Ideology's Association with African American Perceptions and Experiences." Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati, 2023. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1684940266185416

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

ucin1684940266185416
169
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This open access ETD is published by University of Cincinnati and OhioLINK.