🚀 go-pugleaf

To: SOS-DATA

From the Southern Focus Poll, spring 1992:

       SOUTHERNERS BELIEVE RACIAL CHANGE "MOST IMPORTANT"

"What do you think has been the most important change in the South in your
lifetime?"

36%            changes in race relations
14%            economic development
 4%            Northerners moving in
 3%            improved education
 1% or fewer   more crime, drugs
               changes in the environment (better or worse)
               liberalization of attitudes, etc.
               changes in the role of women

11%            other
11%            don't know
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The percent naming race relations was higher among high-income respondents
(50% of those from households with income over $60,000), blacks (44%),
those
who lived outside the South at age 16 (41%), respondents from the Deep
South
(43%), and the well-educated (46% of college graduates.

Women and young people were less likely to have an opinion.  Among those
who
did, however, women were more likely than men to pick race relations as the
biggest change, and young people were more likely than older ones to do so.

Men and older respondents were more likely than women and the young to
mention
economic growth.

Migrants to the South were more than twice as likely as native Southerners
(7%
vs. 3%) to say that the most important change has been Northerners moving
to
the South.
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John Shelton Reed, director of the Institute for Research in Social
Science,
which conducted the poll for the Center for the Study of the American South
at
UNC-CH:  "I wouldn't argue with the proposition that changes in race
relations
have been the most important changes for the South.  To some degree,
they've
made most of the other changes possible."

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"Overall, what kind of effect do you think racial integration has had on
the
quality of life in the South?  Has integration generally had a positive
effect, a negative effect, or hasn't it made much difference?"
                                         Not much
          Positive       Negative       difference     Don't know

White       48%             19              29              4
Black       48%             15              35              2

Asked whether those changes have been for the better or the worse,
Southerners
are nearly three times as likely to say they've been for the better.

Reed: "It's interesting that there's not much difference between the
responses
of black and white Southerners to that question."


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Based on telephone interviews with 819 adults in 13 Southern states, in
March and April of 1992.  Margin of error is +3.5%, larger for comparisons
between groups.  The Southern Focus Poll is conducted twice a year by the
Institute for Research in Social Science, University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill, in cooperation with the Center for the Study of the American
South.  For information about the poll, call Dr. Beverly Wiggins at (919)
966-2350.