IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pri/cpanda/14.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

American Identity and Public Opinion: How What it Means to be an American Influences Language Policy Preferences

Author

Listed:
  • Deborah Schildkraut

    (Princeton University)

Abstract

This paper builds upon previous research that has shown how notions of what it means to be an American can influence policy preferences. The author does so by analyzing how several conceptions of American citizenship, namely liberalism, civic republicanism, and ethnoculturalism, affect support for declaring English the official language and printing election ballots only in English. Using focus group research, the paper shows that these three conceptions provide a useful, though incomplete, framework for describing Americans' perceptions of their national identity and for examining how those perceptions influence opinions. Further, the author argues that the direction in which conceptions of national identity influence preferences will depend on the particular aspects of identity that people emphasize.

Suggested Citation

  • Deborah Schildkraut, 2000. "American Identity and Public Opinion: How What it Means to be an American Influences Language Policy Preferences," Working Papers 48, Princeton University, School of Public and International Affairs, Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies..
    • Handle: RePEc:pri:cpanda:14
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://culturalpolicy.princeton.edu/sites/culturalpolicy/files/wp14_-_schildkraut.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Smith, Rogers M., 1993. "Beyond Tocqueville, Myrdal, and Hartz: The Multiple Traditions in America," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 87(3), pages 549-566, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Zane Spindler & Xavier Vanssay & Vincent Hildebrand, 2008. "Using Economic Freedom Indexes as Policy Indicators: An Intercontinental Example," Public Organization Review, Springer, vol. 8(3), pages 195-214, September.
    2. Woller, Gary M., 1996. "Business ethics, society, and Adam Smith: Some observations on the liberal business ethos," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 311-332.
    3. James J. Fahey, 2021. "Building Populist Discourse: An Analysis of Populist Communication in American Presidential Elections, 1896–2016," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 102(4), pages 1268-1288, July.
    4. Daniel J. Galvin, 2020. "Let’s not conflate APD with political history, and other reflections on “Causal Inference and American Political Development”," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 185(3), pages 485-500, December.
    5. Richard M. Coughlin & Charles Lockhart, 1998. "Grid-Group Theory and Political Ideology," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 10(1), pages 33-58, January.
    6. Yonn Dierwechter, 2020. "New Urbanism as Urban Political Development: Racial Geographies of ‘Intercurrence’ across Greater Seattle," Urban Planning, Cogitatio Press, vol. 5(4), pages 417-428.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • Z11 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economics of the Arts and Literature

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pri:cpanda:14. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Bobray Bordelon (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/caprius.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.