| Term | Definition |
|---|
| public opinion | The distribution of the population's beliefs about politics and policy issues. |
| demography | The science of population changes. |
| census | A valuable tool for understanding demographic changes. The Constitution requires that the government conduct and "actual enumeration" of the population every ten years. |
| melting pot | The mixing of cultures, ideas, and peoples that has changed the American nation. The United States, with its history of immigration, has often been called this. |
| minority majority | The emergence of a non-Caucasian majority, as compared with a White, generally Anglo-Saxon majority. It is predicted that by about 2060, Hispanic Americans, African Americans, and Asian Americans together will outnumber White Americans. |
| political culture | An overall set of values widely shared within a society. |
| reapportionment | The process of reallocating seats in the House of Representatives every ten years on the basis of the results of the census. |
| political socialization | According to Richard Dawson, "the process through which an individual acquires his [or her] particular political orientations- his [or her] knowledge, feelings, and evaluations regarding his [or her] political world." |
| sample | A relatively small proportion of people who are chosen in a survey so as to be representative of the whole. |
| random sampling | The key technique employed by sophisticated survey researchers, which operates on the principle that everyone should have an equal probability of being selected for the sample. |
| sampling error | The level of confidence in the findings of a public opinion poll. The more people interviewed, the more confident one can be of the results. |
| random-digit dialing | A technique used by pollsters to place telephone calls randomly to both listed and unlisted members when conducting a survey. |
| exit poll | Public opinion surveys used by major media pollsters to predict electoral winners with speed and precision. |
| political ideology | A coherent set of beliefs about politics, public policy, and public purpose. It helps give meaning to political events, personalities, and policies. |
| gender gap | A term that refers to the regular pattern by which women are more likely to support Democratic candidates. Women tend to be significantly less conservative than men and are more likely to support spending on social services and to oppose higher levels of military spending. |
| political participation | All the activities used by citizens to influence the selection of political leaders or the policies they pursue. The most common but not the only means of this is voting. Other means include protest and civil disobedience. |
| protest | A form of political participation designed to achieve policy change through dramatic and unconventional tactics. |
| civil disobedience | A form of political participation that reflects a conscious decision to break a law believed to be immoral and to suffer the consequences. |
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