An investigation of policy preferences in the U.S. and how group opinion affects political representation. 

"The impressive array of social scientific studies in Who Gets Represented? should set the agenda for the next generation of research on public opinion and political inequality in the United States. This research ought to further untangle the mechanisms by which the rich and other identifiable constituencies have persistently benefitted more than others from government policies even as these policies have been responsive over time to the American public writ large."
-ROBERT Y. SHAPIRO, professor of political science, Columbia University

"This is a truly important book, containing cutting-edge scholarship on one of the most pressing questions of our era. The authors do not settle for easy answers, but instead collectively puzzle over the question of whether rising inequality in American society is in fact connected to the way democratic institutions link citizens to their government. The result is a complex yet critical debate that will reshape the way social scientists think about issues of political representation."
-JEFF MANZA, professor and chair, Department of Sociology, New York University

While it is often assumed that policymakers favor the interests of some citizens at the expense of others, it is not always evident when and how groups’ interests differ or what it means when they do. Who Gets Represented? challenges the usual assumption that the preferences of any one group—women, African Americans, or the middle class—are incompatible with the preferences of other groups. The book analyzes differences across income, education, racial, and partisan groups and investigates whether and how differences in group opinion matter with regard to political representation.

Part I examines opinions among social and racial groups. Relying on an innovative matching technique, contributors Marisa Abrajano and Keith Poole link respondents in different surveys to show that racial and ethnic groups do not, as previously thought, predictably embrace similar attitudes about social welfare. Katherine Cramer Walsh finds that, although preferences on health care policy and government intervention are often surprisingly similar across class lines, different income groups can maintain the same policy preferences for different reasons. Part II turns to how group interests translate into policy outcomes, with a focus on differences in representation between income groups. James Druckman and Lawrence Jacobs analyze Ronald Reagan’s response to private polling data during his presidency and show how different electorally significant groups—Republicans, the wealthy, religious conservatives—wielded disproportionate influence on Reagan’s policy positions. Christopher Wlezien and Stuart Soroka show that politicians’ responsiveness to the preferences of constituents within different income groups can be surprisingly even-handed. Analyzing data from 1876 to the present, Wesley Hussey and John Zaller focus on the important role of political parties, vis-à-vis constituents’ preferences, for legislators’ behavior.

Who Gets Represented? upends several long-held assumptions, among them the growing conventional wisdom that income plays in American politics and the assumption that certain groups will always—or will never—have common interests. Similarities among group opinions are as significant as differences for understanding political representation. Who Gets Represented? offers important and surprising answers
to the question it raises.

PETER K. ENNS is assistant professor of government at Cornell University.

CHRISTOPHER WLEZIEN is professor of political science at Temple University.

CONTRIBUTORS:  Marisa Abrajano, Yosef Bhatti,  James N. Druckman, Christopher Ellis,  Robert S. Erikson,  Martin Gilens,  David A. Hopkins, Wesley Hussey,  Lawrence R. Jacobs,  Keith T. Poole,  Elizabeth Rigby,  Stuart N. Soroka, James A. Stimson,  Laura Stoker,  Joseph Daniel Ura,  Katherine Cramer Walsh,  Gerald C. Wright,  John Zaller.

A Volume in the American Sociological Association’s Rose Series in Sociology

Winner of the 2011 William T. Goode Award from the Family Section of the American Sociological Association

Winner of the North Central Sociological Association’s 2011 Scholarly Achievement Award

Winner of the Midwest Sociological Society’s 2011 Distinguished Book Award

“This thought-provoking book goes beyond abstract theorizing and polarized debates to examine how Americans actually define family, analyzing the origins, contradictions, consequences, and likely evolution of people’s views. A must-read for academics and concerned citizens alike.”
—STEPHANIE COONTZ, professor of history and family studies, The Evergreen State College 

“What makes a family? Is it marriage? Children? Pets? Co-residence? Are loving and enduring relationships the essence of families, whether these are formally recognized or not? Counted Out asks these simple but fundamental questions. As a result, Brian Powell and his colleagues paint a most revealing picture of how diverse groups of Americans think about today’s variety of family forms, especially same-sex relationships, and how these views have evolved in recent years. The book also illuminates beliefs concerning custody, genetics, and changing one’s last name upon marriage. This study shows just how much we can learn from surveys when combined with open-ended questions in the hands of skillful and thoughtful researchers. This highly accessible volume will make a splendid supplemental reader in courses ranging from introductory surveys on the family and diversity in American life to graduate courses on survey methods. Bravo!”
—JERR Y A. JACOBS, professor of sociology, University of Pennsylvania 

“Counted Out makes clear why ‘family values’ has been such a hotly debated political issue in the United States. It shows the ambivalence Americans have about including ‘as family’ those arrangements that are not based on marriage—heterosexual cohabitation and same-sex parenting and partnering. Using rich and unique data, Counted Out also illuminates the limits of the ‘gender revolution.’ Strong gender biases continue to influence who Americans think should have custody of children following divorce. Americans also continue to overwhelmingly endorse the practice of women taking their husband’s name at marriage. Anyone interested in family change or change in gender norms will find much food for thought in this exceptionally well-argued and insightful volume.”
—SUZANNE BIANCHI, Distinguished Professor, Department of Sociology, UCLA

When state voters passed the California Marriage Protection Act (Proposition 8) in 2008, it restricted the definition of marriage to a legal union between a man and a woman. The act’s passage further agitated an already roiling national debate about whether American notions of family could or should expand to include, for example, same-sex marriage, unmarried cohabitation, and gay adoption. But how do Americans really define family? The first study to explore this largely overlooked question, Counted Out examines currents in public opinion to assess their policy implications and predict how Americans’ definitions of family may change in the future.

Counted Out broadens the scope of previous studies by moving beyond efforts to understand how Americans view their own families to examine the way Americans characterize the concept of family in general. The book reports on and analyzes the results of the authors’ Constructing the Family Surveys (2003 and 2006), which asked more than 1,500 people to explain their stances on a broad range of issues, including gay marriage and adoption, single parenthood, the influence of biological and social factors in child development, religious ideology, and the legal rights of unmarried partners. Not surprisingly, the authors find that the standard bearer for public conceptions of family continues to be a married, heterosexual couple with children. More than half of Americans also consider same-sex couples with children as family, and from 2003 to 2006 the percentages of those who believe so increased significantly—up 6 percent for lesbian couples and 5 percent for gay couples. The presence of children in any living arrangement meets with a notable degree of public approval. Less than 30 percent of Americans view heterosexual cohabitating couples without children as family, while similar couples with children count as family for nearly 80 percent. Counted Out shows that for most Americans, however, the boundaries around what they define as family are becoming more malleable with time.

Counted Out demonstrates that American definitions of family are becoming more expansive. Who counts as family has far-reaching implications for policy, including health insurance coverage, end-of-life decisions, estate rights, and child custody. Public opinion matters. As lawmakers consider the future of family policy, they will want to consider the evolution in American opinion represented in this groundbreaking book.

BRIAN POWELL is Rudy Professor of Sociology at Indiana University.

CATHERINE BOLZENDAHL is assistant professor of sociology in the School of Social Sciences at the University of California, Irvine.

CLAUDIA GEIST is assistant professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Utah.

LALA CARR STEELMAN is professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of South Carolina.

"In The Colors of Poverty Ann Chih Lin and David Harris bring together a stellar roster of scholars to argue that racial inequality does not stem from a single powerful socioeconomic disadvantage, but from multiple disadvantages that accumulate over time to undermine decisively the life chances of poor minorities. Attempts to find one underlying cause of poverty and eliminate it with a magic policy bullet, they argue, are doomed to failure. This insight should guide all future research and policy on poverty in the United States."
-DOUGLAS S. MASSEY, Henry G. Bryant Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs, Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University

"The Colors of Poverty has it all–theory, data, and policy. It treats a wide range of substantive topics and is inclusive of the full 'color' spectrum in the United States, not just blacks and whites. Ann Chih Lin and David R. Harris, and the chapter authors, bring a fresh perspective to the vexing problem of race-based disadvantage. You may not need any other book on your syllabus."
-MARY PATTILLO, professor of sociology and African American studies, Northwestern University

"The Colors of Poverty, the product of an interdisciplinary team of leading scholars, explores the key issues at the intersection of race, poverty, and public policy. The book's eleven chapters are sophisticated, comprehensive, and well-balanced. Anyone who wants to understand the multiple and overlapping causes of the persistence of racial disadvantage in the United States could not do better than to study this book."
-PAUL A. JARGOWSKY, professor of public policy, University of Texas at Dallas

Given the increasing diversity of the nation—particularly with respect to its growing Hispanic and Asian populations—why does racial and ethnic difference so often lead to disadvantage? In The Colors of Poverty, a multidisciplinary group of experts provides a breakthrough analysis of the complex mechanisms that connect poverty and race.

The Colors of Poverty reframes the debate over the causes of minority poverty by emphasizing the cumulative effects of disadvantage in perpetuating poverty across generations. The contributors consider a kaleidoscope of factors that contribute to widening racial gaps, including education, racial discrimination, social capital, immigration, and incarceration. Michèle Lamont and Mario Small grapple with the theoretical ambiguities of existing cultural explanations for poverty disparities.  They argue that culture and structure are not competing explanations for poverty, but rather collaborate to produce disparities. Looking at how attitudes and beliefs exacerbate racial stratification, social psychologist Heather Bullock links the rise of inequality in the United States to an increase in public tolerance for disparity. She suggests that the American ethos of rugged individualism and meritocracy erodes support for antipoverty programs and reinforces the belief that people are responsible for their own poverty. Sociologists Darren Wheelock and Christopher Uggen focus on the collateral consequences of incarceration in exacerbating racial disparities and are the first to propose a link between legislation that blocks former drug felons from obtaining federal aid for higher education and the black/white educational attainment gap. Joe Soss and Sanford Schram argue that the increasingly decentralized and discretionary nature of state welfare programs allows for different treatment of racial groups, even when such policies are touted as “race-neutral.” They find that states with more blacks and Hispanics on welfare rolls are consistently more likely to impose lifetime limits, caps on benefits for mothers with children, and stricter sanctions.

The Colors of Poverty is a comprehensive and evocative introduction to the dynamics of race and inequality. The research in this landmark volume moves scholarship on inequality beyond a simple black-white paradigm, beyond the search for a single cause of poverty, and beyond the promise of one “magic bullet” solution.

ANN CHIH LIN is associate professor in the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy and Department of Political Science at the University of Michigan.

DAVID R. HARRIS is professor of sociology and deputy provost at Cornell University.

CONTRIBUTORS: Scott W. Allard, Heather E. Bullock, George Farkas, David R. Harris, Michèle Lamont, Ann Chih Lin, Selina A. Mohammed, Devah Pager, Lincoln Quillian, Rozlyn Reed, Sanford F. Schram, Mario Luis Small, Joe Soss, Michael A. Stoll, Christopher Uggen, Darren Wheelock, and David R. Williams

A Volume in the National Poverty Center Series on Poverty and Public Policy