My research question is, to what extent do gender and socioeconomic status influence African American support for federal laws to combat climate change? Environmental racism is an issue that is pervasive in minority communities, however, within each minority group, there seems to be a wide array of opinions on how environmentalism should be prioritized amongst other social justice causes and to obtain a better understanding of what dictates what factors determine one’s support. Since there can be a plethora of reasons why a person chooses to prioritize or support a cause, this research will specifically examine how socioeconomic status and gender can impact their views on environmentalism. I will be adopting hypotheses from, Parris, Hegtvedt, and Johnson (2020) who sought to understand what environmental justice means to those who are not as deeply affected. They also researched how one’s socioeconomic status can also be attributed to their experiences in their community, which can ultimately impact how one views the importance of environmental justice. They discovered that the socialization of women versus men could potentially be a factor in why women support and prioritize environmentalism. They argued that women are traditionally socialized to be the “caregiver”, which could spark an interest in this social justice cause. For this project, I will be using data from the Collaborative Multiracial Post-Election Survey from the 2016 survey. With my dependent variable being the federal laws to combat climate change and my independent variable being gender and socioeconomic status.

This project examines the ways in which gender influences Black intraracial attitudes towards transgender people. Drawing on work in gender and sexuality studies and public opinion/policy this project builds on the implications of theories such as ‘Staying in’ (Brooks, 2016) and ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ (Miller, 2011) to explain differences in Black LGBTQ identity management within the Black community. These theories support a culturally specific examination of gendered issues which is missing from the conversation on the perception of transgender people and the fight for transgender lives in the United States. Using an intersectional framework, I explore whether gender identification affects the responsibility individuals report having to transgender members of their own community. In this project, I examine how Black women and men respond when asked about the how important it is for the Black community to address challenges faced by Black transgender people. This study employs the 2016 Collaborative Multiracial Post-Election Survey (CMPS), a survey on attitudes and opinions on politically relevant issues among varying racial groups. A bivariate analysis of Black respondents reveals the extent to which gender influences Black intraracial attitudes towards transgender people. Key words: Black political thought, transgender, Black LGBTQ, heterosexism, gender

This project aims to explore to what extent political ideology influences Black women’s attitudes toward health services. Following the historic 2022 Supreme Court overturning of the landmark Roe v. Wade (1973) case, discussions about abortion, universal healthcare, and women’s rights are prominent in the media and households. There is a longstanding body of literature on women’s views regarding so-called “women’s issues.”. However this literature focuses largely on the attitudes of white women with little attention to Black women’s political attitudes toward women’s issues. Yet the potential for variations in attitudes toward healthcare due to ideological identification amongst Black women is potentially a rich area of study. This research is in conversation with theories about the role of ideology on public opinion, specifically policy issues that are traditionally targeted to women. Using data collected from the 2016 Collaborative Multiracial Post-Election Survey, a national survey of voters and non-voters across race and ethnicity on political and social issues, I examine whether there is a relationship between Black women’s ideology and their support for increased federal spending on health services.

Currently, the united states has the largest prison population in human history, and enacts immigration policy that cages and confines people. This research examines whether proximity to undocumented persons and incarcerated persons (respectively) produce similar levels of trust in government, while controlling for race. Using the 2016 Collaborative Multiracial Post Election Survey (CMPS) this project analyzes how Black people who know someone who is or was incarcerated and Latines who know someone who is undocumented trust the government. This project looks at whether similar criminalization and othering from the state creates similar levels of trust. Extant literature suggests that both jailing and immigration classifications exist to negatively categorize certain people; there is also research that suggests people with loved ones impacted by immigrant status and prison distrust the government. There is little that shows a connection between the two groups using the same dataset. The aim of this research is to address this gap in the literature and inform how different elements of the carceral state influence trust among racialized communities.