Race and White Rural Consciousness

Abstract

The concept of rural consciousness has gained a significant amount of traction over the past several years, as evidenced by hundreds of citations and its inclusion within the most recent pilot of the ANES. However, many have questioned whether rural consciousness is appreciably different from racial prejudice. We assessed this issue by distributing a survey study to Wisconsinites living in rural and urban communities, and by examining the relationships between rural consciousness, racial resentment, and political attitudes in the ANES 2019 Pilot Study. The survey study revealed that participants living in rural parts of Wisconsin—unlike those living in urban parts—tended to think of city dwellers as possessing more negative attributes. In addition, the survey study revealed that rural participants thought of Milwaukeeans, specifically, as possessing stereotypically Black attributes. Moreover, this tendency was starker among those who scored higher on a measure of rural consciousness, suggesting that rural consciousness is related to racial stereotyping. Finally, in an analysis of the ANES 2019 Pilot Study, we found that rural consciousness correlated with racial resentment, and that controlling for racial resentment dramatically reduced the extent to which rural consciousness could predict political preferences (e.g., approval for Donald Trump). Thus, while white rural consciousness may not be reducible to racism, racism certainly plays a central role.

Rural Identity as a Contributing Factor to Anti-Intellectualism in the U.S.

“…Other sociological studies of rural areas find similar out-group resentment and anger against urban-affiliated professionals, experts, and the federal government (Hochschild, 2018 ; Wuthnow, 2019 ). In line with these expectations from ethnographic work, Nelsen and Petsko ( 2021 ) find racial resentment to significantly correlate with rural consciousness, and that rural consciousness also correlates with anti-intellectualism.…”

“…Though previous work has found different ways of measuring the urban–rural divide vary, and that subjective identification may matter especially for political outcomes (Nemerever & Rogers, 2021 ), this study helps clarify what drives these distinctions. I also empirically verify qualitative work suggesting that anti-intellectualism is an associated value with rural identity using national data; though rural consciousness has been found to correlate with anti-intellectualism using quantitative data (Nelsen & Petsko, 2021 ), this area has not fully been explored, nor has its causal direction.…”

“…Although urban areas are typically the out-group of rural areas in academic literature (Cramer, 2016 ; Lyons & Utych, 2021 ; Munis, 2020 ), which groups are considered “urban” may also have implications for what rural areas view as out-groups. For instance, Nelsen and Petsko ( 2021 ) find that white rural Wisconsinites see the typical urban resident in the state as relatively non-white.…”

“…Established political science literature on rural identity conceptualizes it as being affectively opposed to urban areas, as rural residents perceive urban areas to look down on rural areas and forget about them in decision-making (Cramer, 2016 ). However, recent work has expanded on this and suggested that the term “urban” may be a blanket term that covers certain groups, such as non-whites for white rural Wisconsinites (Nelsen & Petsko, 2021 ). I continue down this vein of thought and argue that another prominent “urban-affiliated” group are intellectuals and experts, who are seen by rural identifiers as unduly telling others what to do while lacking in common sense—a norm affiliated with rurality.…”

Rural identity and LGBTQ public opinion in the United States

“…This is because individuals with rural identities perceive urban areas as looking down on rural areas, excluding them from decision making, and receiving a greater share of economic resources (Cramer 2016). More recent work expands on this argument, postulating that the term "urban" might be a blanket term for outgroups who tend to cluster within urban areas (Nelsen & Petsko 2021).…”