Assessing Voter Attitude Toward Language Policy Issues in the United States

Abstract

Two exploratory studies, Bilingual Education and Voter Intent: Colorado 2002, and The Language Policy Attitude Scale (LPAS) Study, investigated the attitudes of registered voters toward selected language policy issues in the United States. In both studies, the Language Policy Attitude Scale (LPAS) consistently measured Cronbach’s α > 0.8, despite disparities between the two samples in age, education, and political ideology and party. Logit regression analysis of the 2002 data identified the LPAS as the strongest predictor variable of voting intention among those variables tested. Most respondents in the two studies supported both English as the national language of the United States, and the public use of other languages in the United States, thereby providing evidence within the American voting public for support of English Plus rather than strict assimilationism. This research provides insight for language educators, formulators of language policy, and language planning and policy researchers.