Race and activism.(Culture And Society)

Karthick Ramakrishnan and Mark Baldassare, The Ties That Bind: Changing Demographics and Civic Engagement in California, Public Policy Institute of California, April 2004 (ppic.org)

Census data in 2000 proved what many had long expected: California, America's largest state, had no clear racial majority group. Despite predictions that this would lead to greater political significance for the state's growing black, Asian, and Latino populations, a new report suggests that higher levels of civic participation among white Californians will ensure that they continue to hold a balance of power.

For years, scholars have known that wealthy, well-educated people are more likely to go to the polls, attend public meetings, sign petitions for ballot initiatives, volunteer for political causes, write to elected officials, donate money to campaigns, and do other things associated with civic engagement. Based on analysis of a wealth of survey data from California, Karthick Ramakrishnan and Mark Baldassare, fellows at the Public Policy Institute of California, find that this trend largely holds, but that race and ethnicity, quite apart from education and wealth, also appear to play a sizeable role in civic engagement.

Except for attendance at public ...