Homework 2



SOCY1000 Sociology Global Perspective. Prof. Backman. Fall 2012

Homework 2, corrected version

Due Friday, November 9

DO NOT EMAIL YOUR ANSWER. Turn it in in class or drop it by my office (7030D Haley) or Trevor's office (2220 HC).

In this homework assignment you will look at trends in attitudes toward same sex marriage and in variables affecting attitudes toward same sex marriage. You will use data from the General Social Survey (GSS). You will be looking especially at a variable called MARHOMO, which is the responses to the question, "Do you agree or disagree: homosexual couples should have the right to marry one another?"

Questions

1. How many respondents to the survey have said "strongly agree” or “agree" to the question, "Do you agree or disagree that Homosexual couples should have the right to marry one another?" (That is, add together the percent “Strongly agree” and the percent “Agree.”) Use the variable MARHOMO. What percent said "disagree” or “strongly disagree" (add the two together), and what percent said “neither agree or disagree?”

2. To see how attitudes have changed with time, crosstabulate MARHOMO with year. That is, make MARHOMO the row variable and YEAR the column variable. What was the year with the highest percent saying strongly agree? What percent said strongly agree in that year? What was the year with the highest percent saying strongly disagree? What percent said strongly disagree in that year? How many people said strongly agree or agree in 2010? How would you describe the trend in attitudes?

3. SEX is the variable name for the respondent’s gender. Do men and women differ in how they respond to MARHOMO? Be sure to give the percents for men and for women as well as the difference between them.

4. Other variables that could affect attitudes toward same sex marriage include the respondent's political leanings (variable name PARTYID), his or her race (RACE), and his or her education (DEGREE). Use each of those as the Column Variable along with MARHOMO as the Row Variable. Which variable has the biggest difference between its positive categories (that is, strongly agree plus agree)? How big is the difference? For instance, perhaps the biggest difference you find is between liberal democrats (89 percent positive) and conservative democrats (only 39 percent positive). [Those numbers were completely made up] Then the variable with the biggest difference would be PARTYID and the difference would be 50 percentage points.

Steps

1. Go to the General Social Survey 1972-2010 archive at .

2. Click on General Social Survey (GSS) Cumulative Datafile 1972-2010

3. To answer question 1, put MARHOMO in the box after Row: (caps are not required), then click on Run the Table below the table (you may have to scroll down to find Run the Table). Your results will appear in a separate window, where the answers to homework question 1 will be in the column with the heading "Distribution," The first number, in bold, is the column percent; it gives you the percent you are looking for. The second number is the number of respondents. Technically this is actually the "Weighted N" of respondents. Weights make it possible to have an apparently fractional number of respondents.

4. To answer question 2, go back to the original SDA window, leave (or put) MARHOMO in the Row: variable box, put YEAR in the Column: variable box, then click Run the Table. You'll get, in another window, a wide table with a column for every year in which the GSS asked the MARHOMO question. The top row gives you the percent saying “Strongly agree” in the year specified by the column, and the bottom row gives you the percent saying “Strongly disagree.” You may have to scroll to the right to see the whole table (up to the year 2010).

5. To answer question 3, put MARHOMO in the Row: variable box and SEX in the Column: variable box. Compare the column percent for males with the column percent for females to answer the question.

6. To answer question 4, you are going to have to make three runs. You are also going to put together the STRONGLY AGREE and AGREE percents in each column to tell you the percent who SUPPORT allowing same sex couples to marry. Leave MARHOMO in the Row: variable box for all three runs. For the first run, put PARTYID in the Column: variable box. After you run the table, for each column add the column percents for the STRONGLY AGREE and AGREE rows to get SUPPORT, then compare the SUPPORTs in all the columns looking for the largest difference. For the second run, put RACE in the Column: variable box. Again calculate SUPPORT (pct STRONGLY AGREE plus pct AGREE) and check for the biggest difference between the columns for SUPPORT. For the final run, put DEGREE in the Column: variable box and check for the biggest difference between the columns in SUPPORT. Whichever column variable (PARTYID, RACE, or DEGREE) had the biggest difference is the answer to the first part of Question 4, and the size of that difference is the answer to the second part.

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