Stephen Klineberg | @SteveKlineberg| June 3, 2015

We are delighted to post this collection of seven blogs presenting some of the most interesting findings from our preliminary analyses of the 2015 Kinder Houston Area Survey. These blogs reflect the work of eight Rice University students who participated this spring in the academic course that developed the questionnaire and analyzed the findings from this year’s survey. We hope readers will gain some new insights from these brief reports and will be able to share in the fun of uncovering the often non-obvious underlying patterns in the survey findings.

The blogs will be posted sequentially on Wednesdays over each of the next seven weeks (from June 3 through July 15). They explore a variety of questions, reflecting the wide-ranging interests of the student researchers:

1. Asian-American assimilation: The longer Asian immigrants are in this country, the more they come to see themselves as “Americans” and to report having close personal friends from other ethnic communities, but they show no signs of becoming any less involved in Asian events or cultural traditions or any weakening of the strong ties with their countries of origin.
2. Environmental concerns: The importance of political party affiliation and of direct exposure to environmental toxins in predicting concerns about the health effects of air pollution and in accounting for beliefs about the causes of global warming.
3. Why the widespread racial inequalities? The relationship among Anglos and blacks between conservative Protestantism and explanations for the racial inequalities in America.
4. Abortion attitudes: The role of empathy and social support in accounting for why a clear majority of Harris County residents have managed consistently over the years to endorse both “anti-abortion” and “pro-choice” positions simultaneously.
5. Does skin color still matter? The significance of skin tone in predicting African Americans’ life circumstances and their reported experiencing of discrimination.
6. Current and future economic circumstances: Differences in the factors that predict respondents’ assessments of their current financial situations and those that account for their beliefs about how they’ll be doing financially 3 or 4 years down the road.
7. Rethinking the death penalty: The evidence that support for capital punishment has been declining among Harris County residents in recent years and the importance of beliefs about the extent of racial discrimination in shaping attitudes toward capital punishment.