THE ETHNIC COMMUNITY THEORY OF BLACK SOCIAL AND POLITICAL PARTICIPATION: ADDITIONAL SUPPORT.

AFRICAN American social conditions; POLITICAL participation; SOCIAL participation; ETHNICITY; SOCIAL alienation; INTERPERSONAL relations; SOCIAL attitudes; ACTIVISM; ASSOCIATIONS, institutions, etc.

This article assesses the relative efficacy of the ethnic community and compensatory explanations of African American participation by first creating indicators of both ethnic community identification and compensatory behavior and subsequently specifying their relative impact as predictors of voluntary association involvement and political participation. There is a historical decline in the importance of compensation as a factor in participation and a concomitant increase in the importance of ethnic community identification. It is plausible to suggest that compensatory theory may well have been an explanation of disproportionate rates of African American organization participation. Perhaps, the majority of African Americans in the historical context of the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s were self-alienated and did behave accordingly, joining a preponderance of sociable organizations. On the other hand, it appears that in the context of the 1960s and 1970s, ethnic community theory has become the salient explanation as race consciousness has assumed a positive and activist form. In the context of urban Connecticut in the mid-1960s, ethnic identification among African Americans was a predictor of issue-active voluntary association joining and political participation. But, compensatory behavior cannot be discounted in any attempt to understand not only involvement in sociable organizations, but political participation as well.