The cross-tabulations you examined in Chapter 8’s SPSS exercises highlighted the strength of the association between attitudes related to race and support for capital punishment. In this chapter, you will explore related issues. As you carry out this analysis, consider what additional information you might be able to obtain about these relationships with qualitative interviews of some of the respondents.

1. Examine the association between race and support for capital punishment. From the menu, click:

Analyze/Descriptive Statistics/Crosstabs

In the Crosstabs window, set

Rows:              cappun

Columns:        race

Cells:             column percents

2. What is the association between race and support for capital punishment? How would you explain that association?

3. Now consider what might lead to variation in support for capital punishment between whites and blacks. Consider

gun ownership (OWNGUN), religious beliefs (FUND), attitudes about race (RACOPEN), education (EDUCSMALL), and political party identification (PARTYID3).

4. Generate crosstabs for the association of support for capital punishment with each of these variables, separately for minorities and whites. Follow the same procedures you used in Step 1, substituting the variables mentioned in Step 3 for RACE in Step 1. However, you must repeat the crosstab request for blacks and whites. To do this, before you choose Analyze, select black respondents only. From the menu above the Data Editor window, select Data, then Select Cases. Then from the Select Cases window, select If condition is satisfied and create this expression:

If . . . RACE=1
After you have generated the crosstabs, go back and repeat the data selection procedures, ending with RACE=2. When finished with the exercises, be sure to go back to Select Cases and select All Cases.

5. Are the bases of support for capital punishment similar among minorities and whites? Discuss your findings.

6. Propose a focus group to explore these issues further. Identify the setting and sample for the study, and describe how you would carry out your focus group.