Socioeconomic-Ethnic Status Inconsistency and Preference for Political Change

Although there have been numerous empirical tests of Lenski's proposition that statusinconsistent persons tend to favor political change more than consistent persons, three critical issues remain unresolved: (1) Do all forms of status inconsistency have such consequences, or just the pattern of low ascribed but high achieved status? (2) Which kinds of political attitudes and behaviors, if any, are actually affected by status inconsistency? (3) Does status inconsistency explain enough variation in any political variables to be of theoretical value? Survey data from Indianapolis show no significant relationships between any combinations of occupation, education, and income with any of ten indicators of preference for political change. Inconsistency between one's overall socioeconomic status and an index of overall ethnic status is related to the two variables of liberal economic attitudes and Democratic voting, but it explains only about one percent of the variation in both cases. Hence we conclude that status inconsistency should be discarded as an explanation of preferences for political change, and further attention given to a variety of other variables.