Quantitative sociological approaches using the latent class analysis : data analyses of status inconsistency, attitudes to social inequality, and authoritarian-conservatism

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Other Title
  • 潜在クラス分析を用いた計量社会学的アプローチ : 地位の非一貫性、格差意識、権威主義的伝統主義を例に
  • センザイ クラス ブンセキ オ モチイタ ケイリョウ シャカイガクテキ アプローチ : チイ ノ ヒイッカンセイ、カクサ イシキ、ケンイシュギテキ デントウシュギ オ レイ ニ

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Abstract

The aim of this paper is to introduce latent class analysis (LCA) and to demonstrate its applicability in quantitative sociological research. First, we explain the basic concept of LCA and its applications: LCA with a distal variable, multi-group LCA, LCA with covariates, and latent transition analysis (LTA). Then, in order to show the usefulness of LCA in sociological research, we applied it to the study of traditional sociological topics: (1) status inconsistency and subjective status identification (2) attitudes to social inequality, and (3) change in authoritarian-conservatism over time. LCA enabled us to extract the classes of status consistency and of status inconsistency. Additional analysis including subjective status identification as a distal variable indicated a clear relationship between status consistency-inconsistency and subjective status identification. LCA of attitudes to social inequality revealed that the latent structure of attitudes to social inequality was complicated and unevenly distributed. We also applied the multinomial logit latent class model and investigated the relationship between socio-economic characteristics and the extracted latent classes. Application of LTA clarified that the pattern of change in the authoritarian-conservatism within individuals between 1979 and 2006, which explained how these change resulted in the overall increase in authoritarian-conservatism over time. The results of LCA enabled us to interpret these topics differently from previous studies and test previous studies from a different perspective. This indicates the effectiveness of LCA as a quantitative sociological approach.

Journal

  • 年報人間科学

    年報人間科学 33 43-68, 2012-03-31

    Sociology, Anthropology and Philosophy, Graduate School of Human Sciences, Osaka University

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