| Term | Definition |
|---|
| Public Opinion | The distribution of the population's beliefs about politics and policy issues. |
| Census | A valuable tool for understanding demographic changes; usually conducted every 10 years. |
| Minority Majority | The emergence of a non-Caucasian majority, as compared with a White, generally Anglo-Saxon majority. |
| Political Culture | An overall set of values widely shared within a society. |
| Reapportionment | The process of reallocating seats in the House of Representatives every 10 years on the basis of the results of the census. |
| Political socialization | The process by which an individual acquires his/her particular political orientations. |
| Sample | A relatively small proportion of people who are chosen in a survey so as to be representative of the whole. |
| Random-Sampling | Employed by researchers, everyone should have an equal probability of being selected for a sample. |
| Sampling Error | The level of confidence in the findings of a public opinion poll. |
| Exit Polls | 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. |
| Gender Gap | A term that refers to the regular pattern by which women are more likely to be less conservative than men and are more likely to support social services and 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. |
| 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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