BEYOND SES - A RESOURCE MODEL OF POLITICAL-PARTICIPATION

This paper develops a resource model of political participation. The r esources considered are time, money, and civic skills-those communicat ions and organizational capacities that are essential to political act ivity. These skills are not only acquired early in life but developed in the nonpolitical institutional settings of adult life: the workplac e, organizations, and churches and synagogues. These resources are dis tributed differentially among groups defined by socioeconomic status. A two-stage least squares analysis shows these resources have powerful effects on overall political activity, thus explaining why socioecono mic status has traditionally been so powerful in predicting participat ion. We disaggregate overall activity into three kinds of acts: those that involve giving time, those that entail donating money, and voting . Each requires a different configuration of resources resulting in di fferent patterns of stratification across various political acts.