Sociology

The social and political participation of Black Americans: Compensatory and ethnic community perspectives revisited

Document Type

Article

Abstract

Two competing approaches to the study of black social and political participation - the compensatoiy and ethnic community perspectives - have dominated attempts to explain the relatively high levels of collective involvement within the black population. One of the main limitations of research in this area has been its weak treatment of the meaning and measurement of compensatory theory. The erroneous belief that blacks had disproportionately low self-esteem was widely held at the time that this theory was developed. Therefore, unlike most previous researchers, we use a measure of low selfesteem to operationalize compensatory behavior. In contrast to the equivocal findings of several previous studies, our results are clear: the ethnic community approach receives strong support, while the compensatory approach finds virtually no support. © 1992 The University of North Carolina Press.

Publication Title

Social Forces

Publication Date

1-1992

Volume

70

Issue

3

First Page

681

Last Page

701

ISSN

0037-7732

DOI

10.1093/sf/70.3.681

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