WHAT DOES AMERICA THINK? 345CRITICAL THINKING|DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
- The gender difference in responses is not large, but it is interesting. What do you think
explains the gender difference? - Why do you think the number of respondents who said extramarital sex was always wrong
has increased in the past 30 years?
10.2 Homosexuality
These are actual survey data from the General Social Survey, 2004.
Do you think homosexual sexual relations are always wrong, almost always
wrong, sometimes wrong, or not wrong at all?The majority of respondents to
the General Social Survey questions from 1973 to 2004 reported that they thought
homosexual relations were almost always wrong. However, those numbers have
declined significantly over the past 30 years, while the number of respondents who
reported thinking homosexual relations were not wrong at all increased dramati-
cally. Gender differences were almost nonexistent, but there are interesting differ-
ences when we look at the data by social class.CRITICAL THINKING|DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
- Social class differences in attitudes toward homosexuality are quite striking. How do you
explain these differences? What part does social location and socialization into the class
structure play?
3 Go to this website to look further at the data. You can run your own statistics and crosstabs
here: http://sda.berkeley.edu/cgi-bin/hsda?harcsda+gss04
REFERENCES:Davis, James A., Tom W. Smith, and Peter V. Marsden. General Social Surveys
1972–2004: [Cumulative file] [Computer file]. 2nd ICPSR version. Chicago, IL: National Opinion Research
Center [producer], 2005; Storrs, CT: Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, University of Connecticut;
Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research; Berkeley, CA: Computer-Assisted
Survey Methods Program, University of California [distributors], 2005.