2. (a) The official poverty rate in 2007 was 12.5 percent, with 37.3 million people living in poverty. (Poverty thresholds vary by size of family and number of related children under 18 years of age. The lowest threshold is $9,944, for a single person over age 65; the highest is $46,143, for a family of nine with one child under 18.) (Select “Poverty” under “People & Households.”)

(b) In 2007, Mississippi ($44,769) had the lowest median family income and Maryland ($82,404) had the highest. (As of 6/15/2009, data were not available for 2008.) (Select “State Median Income” under “People & Households.”)

(c) A June 24, 2009 Census Bureau news release reported: “Sales of new one family houses in May 2009 were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 342,000, according to estimates released jointly today by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. This is 0.6 percent (±17.8%)* below the revised April rate of 344,000 and is 32.8 percent (±10.9%) below the May 2008 estimate of 509,000.” (Home ownership is an economic indicator; select “Economic Indicators” under “Business and Industry.”)

(d) In 2000 a little less than 2 percent (1.8%) of the U.S. population spent more than 1 hour driving to work; among those who did, 28.6 percent graduated from college. (Select iPUMS from “Data Tools,” then select IPUMS USA and “Analyze data online.”)

(e) In Massachusetts, 37.1 percent of the population is a college graduate. (Select “American Factfinder,” then select your state and hit “go.” Now click “show more” above the first set of figures showing “Social Characteristics.”)

(f) In 1970 the growth rate of the world population was 2.07 percent; in 2000 the growth rate was 1.26 percent. (Select “International” under “People & Households,” then select “International Data Base (IDB)” and “World Population Information.”)

3. (a) The assumption called into question is “that basic social psychological processes and theories apply equally well to various racial and ethnic groups.” (pp. 352-353)

(b) The units of analysis were articles that appeared in Social Psychology Quarterly between 1970 and 1999. (In the language of content analysis, the article is the recording unit and the journal is the context unit.)

(c) The authors considered race/ethnicity to be “seriously considered” if an article (1) contained the word race in its title, (2) focused on race as an independent variable, (3) used a dependent variable addressing racial issues, or (4) tested the assumption of race/ethnic similarity.

(d) According to footnote 3: “As a test of inter-coder reliability, ratings of each coder were checked by another on the research team. Agreement was over 95 percent, even in the ‘seriously considered’ category.” (p. 355)

(e) All three categories showed an increase in the attention given to race/ethnicity. The biggest change occurred in articles that made any mention of race and/or ethnicity, which increased from 8 percent in 1970-74 to 41.3 percent in 1995-99. Articles that included race/ethnicity in the analysis increased from 6.9 percent in 1970-74 to 22 percent in 1995-99. Finally, articles that seriously considered race showed the smallest increase, from 6.3 percent in 1970-74 to 10.1 percent in 1995-99.

(f) In general, the researchers found that attention to race/ethnicity lagged behind attention to gender. By 1970, “social psychologists’ interest in gender already had surpassed their interest in race . . . : only 8 percent of the articles published between 1970 and 1974 refer to race, whereas 57.7 percent refer to gender.” (p. 356) By 1995-99, 78 percent of SPQ articles mentioned gender, 54.1 percent included gender in the analysis, and 41.3 percent seriously considered gender, whereas 41.3 percent mentioned race, 22 percent included race in the analysis, and 10.1 percent seriously considered race.

(g) Surveys were most likely and experiments were least likely to incorporate race/ethnicity as a variable. As the researchers point out, it is relatively easy to include race in the analysis of survey data, especially with large data sets (drawn from relatively large, heterogeneous samples); however, experimentalists generally disregard individual differences, as they tend to use small, homogeneous samples and control for race and other differences through randomization.