The purpose of this article is to re-evaluate the independent impact of urban and regional residency on racial tolerance from 1972 to 2006. Recent scholarship has questioned the extent to which the effects of these subcultures reflect general toleration and/or more deep-seated underlying racial attitudes. Using data collected by the National Opinion Research Center’s General Social Survey, this article builds upon past research by including different measures of racial tolerance borrowed from the contemporary work of Schuman, Steeh, Bobo, and Krysan to reassess the impact of these subcultures over a four-decade period. Findings indicate that Southerners remain more obdurate regardless of how racial tolerance is measured and this effect appears to be persisting across the four-decade period. The impact of urbanism, on the other hand, and its effect across time is much more variable and dependent on how racial tolerance is measured. This article further discusses these findings in the framework of the classical theories of Louis Wirth and Samuel Stouffer.
Abrahamson, M., & Carter, V.J. ( 1986). Tolerance, urbanism and region. American Sociological Review, 51, 287-294.
2.
Blumer, H. ( 1965). The future of the color line. In J. C. McKinney & E. T. Thompson (Eds.), The South in continuity and change (pp. 322-326). Durham, NC : Duke University Press.
3.
Carter, J.S. ( 2005). Reassessing the effect of urbanism and regionalism: A comparison of different indicators of racial tolerance. Sociation Today, 3. Retrieved from http://www.ncsociology.org/sociationtoday/v32/urbanism.htm
4.
Carter, J.S., & Borch, C.A. ( 2005). Assessing the effect of urbanism and regionalism on attitudes toward women, 1972-1998. Sociological Inquiry, 75, 548-563.
5.
Carter, J.S., Steelman, L., Mulkey, L., & Borch, C. ( 2005). When the rubber meets the road: The differential effects of urbanism and region on principle and implementation measures of racial tolerance. Social Science Research, 34, 408-425.
6.
Davis, J.A., Smith, T.W., & Marsden, J.A. ( 2007). General social surveys cumulative codebook: 1972-2006 . Chicago: National Opinion Research Center.
7.
Firebaugh, G., & Davis, K.E. ( 1988). Trends in antiblack prejudice, 1972-1984: Region and cohort effects. American Journal of Sociology, 94, 251-272.
8.
Fischer, C.S. ( 1978). Urban-to-non-urban diffusion of opinions in contemporary America. American Journal of Sociology, 84, 151-159.
9.
Fischer, C.S. ( 1982). The dispersion of kinship ties in modern society: Contemporary data and historical speculation. Journal of Family History , 7, 353-370.
10.
Gans, H.J. ( 1962). Urbanism and suburbanism as ways of life: A reevaluation of definitions. In A. Rose (Ed.), Human behavior and social processes (pp. 625-648). Boston: Houghton-Mifflin.
11.
Glenn, N.D., & Hill, L., Jr. (1977). Rural-urban differences in attitudes and behavior in the United States. Annals of the American Association of Political and Social Science, 429, 36-50.
12.
Greeley, A.M., & Sheatsley, P.B. (1972). Proceedings of the twenty-seventh annual conference on public opinion research. Public Opinion Quarterly, 38, 398-454.
13.
Jang, S.J., & Alba, R.D. ( 1992). Urbanism and nontraditional opinion: A test of Fischer’s sub-cultural theory. Social Science Quarterly, 73, 596-609.
14.
Kane, E.W., & Kyyro, E.K. ( 2001). For whom does education enlighten? Race, gender, education, and beliefs about social inequality. Gender and Society, 15, 710-733.
15.
Kinder, D.R., & Mendelberg, T. (2000). Individualism reconsidered: Principles and prejudice in contemporary American opinion. In D. O. Sears, J. Sidanius , & L. Bobo (Eds.), Racialized politics (pp. 44-74). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
16.
Kleugel, J.R. ( 1990). Trends in Whites’ explanation of the Black-White gap in socioeconomic status, 1977-1989. American Sociological Review, 55, 512-525.
17.
Kleugel, J.R., & Smith, E.R. ( 1982). Whites’ beliefs about Blacks’ opportunity . American Sociological Review, 47, 518-532.
18.
Lipset, S.M., & Schneider, W. ( 1978). The Bakker case: How would it be decided at the bar of public opinion? Public Opinion, 10, 38-44.
19.
Loftus, J. ( 2001). America’s liberalization in attitudes toward homosexuality, 1973 to 1998. American Sociological Review, 66, 726-782.
20.
Middleton, R. ( 1976). Regional differences in prejudice. American Sociological Review, 41, 94-117.
21.
Odum, H.W. ( 1945). The way of the South. Social Forces, 23, 16-26.
22.
Odum, H.W., & Moore, H.E. ( 1938). American regionalism. New York: Holt.
23.
Schuman, H., Steeh, C., Bobo, L., & Krysan, M. ( 1997). Racial attitudes in America: Trends and interpretations (Rev. ed.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Stouffer, S. ( 1955). Communism, conformity and civil liberties. New York: Doubleday.
26.
Tuch, S. ( 1987). Urbanism, region, and tolerance revisited. American Sociological Review, 52, 504-510.
27.
Williams, J.A., Jr. , Nunn, C.Z. , & St. Peter, L. (1976). Origins of tolerance: Findings from a replication of Stouffer’s Communism, conformity, and civil liberties. Social Forces, 55, 394-403.
28.
Wilson, T.C. ( 1985). Urbanism and tolerance: A test of some hypotheses drawn from Wirth and Stouffer. American Sociological Review, 50, 117-123.
29.
Wilson, T.C. ( 1986). Community population size and social heterogeneity: An empirical test. American Journal of Sociology, 91, 1154-1169.
30.
Wirth, L. ( 1964a). Rural-urban differences. In L. Wirth & A. J. Reiss, Jr. (Eds.), On cities and social life: Selected papers (pp. 221-225). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. (Original work published 1956)
31.
Wirth, L. ( 1964b). Urbanism as a way of life. In L. Wirth & A. J. Reiss, Jr. (Eds.), On cities and social life: Selected papers (pp. 60-83). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. (Original work published 1938)
