That unity does not extend to judgments of key community institutions and how fairly they treat minority group members. There is a substantial split between the views of white Americans and those of minority Americans on whether local institutions treat minorities fairly. The survey includes a series of four questions designed to elicit judgments on whether key institutions in America treat everyone fairly or not. Without exception the majority opinion for each institution - local public schools, local government, local news media and the local police - is that the institution is fair. And without exception, African-Americans have a different view. (See Table 4.)

Three-quarters of Americans (77%) say "All the students have an equal chance to get a good education in our local public schools, regardless of race." Only 17 percent agree that "students who are black, Hispanic or other minorities do not have as good a chance to get a good education in the local public schools."

• But this opinion is not shared across racial groups. White Americans see the schools as fair by an 81 percent to 13 percent margin. African-Americans are substantially less likely to agree, with only 50 percent seeing equal educational opportunity and 45 percent seeing a lack of equality. Hispanics' views are not significantly different from those of white Americans.

Immigration

The impact of immigrants on America has been enormous since the founding of the nation by immigrants from Europe. And the country has seen a very diverse group of immigrants to the country over the last 20 years.

On balance, recent immigrants are seen as more of a problem than a positive influence on the country. Forty-three percent of the public says that immigrants have been a big problem or a small problem for the country, with 26 percent saying they have created big problems and 17 percent saying they have created small problems. Only 16 percent say that immigrants have done more to improve the country than to cause problems. And about a third (32%) say that immigrants have not had much effect.

The public's views are somewhat less harsh when the focus is moved from the country as a whole to their own community. Sixty-one percent of the public say that recent immigrants have not had much impact on their community. Twenty percent say that immigrants have caused problems in their community, with an even division between the perception of causing big problems and small problems. Thirteen percent of the public say that recent immigrants have improved their local community. (See Figure 3.)

These figures actually reflect a slight improvement in the past few years. A survey in 1997 for the Knight-Ridder newspapers found that fifty percent of Americans said that recent immigrants created problems for the country, with 33 percent saying they had created big problems (A telephone survey for Knight-Ridder Newspapers by Princeton Survey Research Associates, based on interviews with 1,314 adults, age 18 years and older, May 2-26, 1997). The same number in each survey (16%) say that immigrants have improved the nation, while fewer in the survey in 1997 say that they have had no impact (27%). The 1997 survey also included a similar question, which asked about immigrants' impact in "your city or town". It found slightly more people saying recent immigrants improved their city (14%) and slightly more who say they created big problems (16%).

Those who live in the big cities are slightly more likely to say that immigrants have improved their community (18%), while those who live outside the cities are marginally more likely to say that immigrants just have not made a difference (64%).

Neighborhood Diversity

A lot of Americans report they live in neighborhoods that are at least somewhat diverse. Twenty-seven percent of the public say that everyone in their neighborhood is the same race as they are. Thirty percent report that most of their neighbors are of their race and 38 percent say that the neighborhood has a mix of races. Four percent say that most of their neighbors are of a different race. Not surprisingly, white Americans are more likely to report that they live in neighborhoods that are at least majority white (64%), while African-Americans are more likely to say they live in mixed-race neighborhoods (50%).

And Americans say they would not move out of their neighborhoods if the racial makeup of the area changed substantially. Asked if they would move if their neighborhood changed so much that "a great majority of your neighbors were of a different race than you", only 8 percent say they would move. Seventy-eight percent say they would not move. Twelve percent say it would depend on the circumstances.

Despite these reports of substantial diversity in the neighborhoods, most Americans say that they talk with those of different races outside of the neighborhood. Thirty-nine percent say that they most often talk to those of other races at work. Twenty-four percent say those conversations most often occur in stores and shops. Only nine percent say they most often talk with others of different races in their neighborhoods and eight percent say at school. Six percent report the conversations at church and 12 percent at some other place.

Detailed Findings: Education

Education is high on Americans' list of important issues, both nationally and locally, in part because public schools are seen as having problems. About half of the public says the quality of education in public schools is a problem in their community. Twenty-six percent say it is a big problem in their community and 26 percent say it is a small problem. Thirty-nine percent of the public says the quality of the education in the local public schools is not a problem in their community. Ten percent do not answer.

• Those living in the big cities are more likely to see this as a big problem (42%) than those living in suburbs (24%) and in small towns or rural areas (21% each).

• Parents and non-parents express similar levels of concern about this issue.

• African-Americans (41%) and Hispanics (38%) are more likely to say this is a big problem than white Americans (23%).

There is a substantial difference of opinion about the performance of the local public schools between the elementary schools and the upper schools - including junior high, middle and high schools.

Seven in ten Americans (70%) give the local elementary public schools positive marks, including 27 percent who say they are doing an excellent job. Another 26 percent give the elementary schools low marks. Four percent do not answer. (These figures are based only on those who say they can rate the elementary schools. Fourteen percent of the public say they cannot do so.)

In contrast, only 56 percent give the local middle and high schools positive marks, with 19 percent rating them excellent. Forty percent give the upper schools negative marks. Four percent do not answer. (Again, these figures are based only on those who say they can rate the middle and high schools. Sixteen percent of the public say they cannot do so.) (These ratings of public schools are similar to those found in a telephone survey for Family Circle Family Index Project, based on 2,004 interviews of adult heads of households, June 1-June16, 1993 by Princeton Survey Research Associates.)

Generally, attitudes about the two levels of public schools are consistent over demographic groups.

• Only 58 percent of those living in big cities give the elementary schools positive marks, while about three-quarters of those living elsewhere (73%) do so. Only 45 percent of those in the big cities rate public high schools positively, compared with 59 percent of those elsewhere.

• On local elementary schools, 72 percent of the white Americans, but only 57 percent African-Americans give them positive marks. On high schools, the marks are 59 percent positive among white Americans and 43 percent positive among African-Americans.

How to Improve the Schools

Updating the educational resources in the schools and reducing class sizes are seen as the greatest needs in the public education system. Slightly more than one-third rate updating resources as a major need in the local schools, with somewhat fewer focusing on teacher quality and parental involvement.

Overall levels of support for various improvements in the schools are consistent across groups, but there are differences in the importance assigned to various possible changes. For example, on improving teacher quality, there are differences by race, location and parental status.

• While half of African-Americans (50%) see a great need to improve teacher quality, 23 percent of white Americans assign it that level of concern.

• Thirty-eight percent of those in the big cities see improving teacher quality as a great need, while only 23 percent of those in the suburbs do so.

• Parents are more likely than non-parents to see this as needed (74% vs. 67%).

One change that Americans want to see in the public schools is to teach values - in addition to academic subjects. Three-quarters of the public (75%) say that the public schools should teach "values, respect and courtesy in addition to the traditional academic subjects." Twenty-two percent say that the schools should "stick to teaching academic subjects and leave teaching values to parents." These sentiments are held equally across the demographic groups, although women (78%) are a bit more in favor of teaching values than men (71%).

Detailed Findings: Community Life

Overall, the sense of community in America seems reasonably strong. Many know their neighbors, and a substantial fraction know all of their neighbors. Citizens think that they can make a difference by volunteering their time or by getting together with others to make changes in their communities. And despite the increased time pressures that are a fact of life in the new "Internet Economy", Americans remain satisfied with the amount of time they spend with their family, with their friends and just relaxing. For adults facing particular time pressures - including parents and those in two-income couples - life is more harried and less satisfying.

The most basic connection one can have with those who live in your neighborhood is that you know them and that you know their names, which is a step beyond just knowing someone well enough to say "Hello" on the street. More than a third of Americans (37%) say they know the names of all their neighbors who live close to them. Forty-five percent say they know only some of their neighbors and 17 percent say they do not know the names of any of their neighbors. (See Table 6.)

These findings suggest the seemingly contradictory conclusion that Americans may be less completely integrated into their neighborhoods, but still less isolated than in the past. A 1993 survey found 44 percent of Americans saying they know the names of all their neighbors, above the 37 percent finding in the latest survey. Thirty percent in 1993 said they knew only some of their neighbors' names. But 25 percent in 1993 said that they did not know any of their neighbors' names. The latest finding of 17 percent is an improvement in this isolated group. (Telephone survey for Family Circle Family Index Project, based on 2,004 interviews of adult heads of households, June 1-June16, 1993 by Princeton Survey Research Associates.)

Where Americans see problems in their communities, they do have strategies for solving those problems. The public is roughly split on the best way to make their communities better places to live: 41 percent say that volunteering is the best choice and 35 percent say that getting others involved is the best choice. Only eight percent say complain to the authorities and three percent say give money. Ten percent suggest some other, unspecified solution and two percent are not sure.

Detailed Findings: Personal Life

When it comes to their daily lives, Americans are reasonably satisfied with the amount of time they spend in key tasks - with family, friends and relaxation. More than eight out of ten Americans say they are satisfied with the amount of time they spend with their families, with five in 10 saying they are very satisfied. (See Table 7.) Americans express somewhat lower levels of satisfaction with how much time they spend with friends and relatives, how much time they spend on hobbies and clubs, and how much time they spend just relaxing.

These latest findings are not dramatically different from those found in a 1993 survey for Family Circle magazine (Telephone survey for Family Circle Family Index Project, based on 2,004 interviews of adult heads of households, June 1-June16, 1993 by Princeton Survey Research Associates.) For example, satisfaction with the amount of time spent "just relaxing" is down just a bit. In 1993, 39 percent said they were very satisfied with how much time they spend relaxing (compared with 34 percent today) and 37 percent said they were somewhat satisfied (the same as in the current survey).

NOTE: An asterisk (*) means less than .5 percent gave this answer.

Still there are trade-offs for many Americans. Households with both the husband and wife holding down jobs and those with parents and children under 18 at home report less satisfaction with the time they have for key personal tasks. Conversely, those age 65 and older are quite satisfied with the time they have, a reflection in part of the fact that most in this age group are retired.

For example, there are variations in the degree of satisfaction concerning the amount of time spent with one's family.

• Only 41 percent of those who live in households where both the husband and wife work say they are very satisfied with the time they spend with their family. Sixty-five percent of those from single-income working couples say they are very satisfied.

• Sixty-three percent of those age 65 and older say they are very satisfied with the amount of time they spend with their families. That high level of satisfaction drops as low as 43 percent among those between the ages of 35 and 49.

While the public doesn't fault the news media for failing to cover important problems, many do still express criticism of both the national and the local news media. As was discussed earlier, one particular criticism that resonates in the African-American community is that the local news media unfairly runs many negative stories about minorities.

There are relatively few issues that the public sees are being ignored by the national or local news media. This is, of course, a difficult question for the average citizen to answer, since they are not usually in the position of making decisions of what is covered by the news media. But it is a question that can detect issues that are troubling the public, but not yet receiving major media attention. The largest categories of response to these two questions are diametrically opposed: generalized criticism of the news media (23% national, 10% local) paired against those who say they cannot think of anything that is being ignored by the news media (25% national, 18% local).

Media Usage

There are many different methods for measuring media usage, including the public's readership or viewership of daily news stories. And the advent of the Internet has complicated that further. Whatever the measure, there is little doubt that those who run the nation's news media organizations are worried about declining news readership and news viewership. This survey includes some measures of news media usage that provide a context for the analysis of the public's views on the issues and it's judgments of news media performance.

APPENDIX

Survey Methodology

The survey results are based on telephone interviews with a representative sample of 1,006 adults, age 18 and older living in telephone households in the 48 contiguous United States. The interviews were conducted from October 6 through October 31, 1999.

Sample Design

The sample for this survey was designed to produce a representative sample of telephone households in the 48 contiguous United States. The selected sample is a random digit sample of telephone numbers selected from telephone exchanges drawn by Survey Sampling, Inc. of Westport, Connecticut following PSRA's specifications.

The random digit aspect of the sample is used to avoid "listing" bias. The design of the sample ensures this representation by random generation of the last two digits of telephone numbers selected on the basis of their area code, telephone exchange (the first three digits of a seven digit telephone number), and bank number (the fourth and fifth digits). Only working banks of telephone numbers are selected. A working bank is defined as 100 contiguous telephone numbers containing one or more residential listings.

The sample was released for interviewing in replicates, which are random subsamples of the larger sample. Using replicates to control the release of sample to the field ensures that the complete call procedures are followed for the entire sample. The use of replicates also ensures that the regional distribution of numbers called is appropriate. Again, this works to increase the representativeness of the final sample.

At least 10 attempts were made to complete an interview at every sampled telephone number. The calls were staggered over times of day and days of the week to maximize the chances of making a contact with a potential respondent. All interview breakoffs and refusals were re-contacted at least once in order to attempt to convert them to completed interviews. In each contacted household, interviewers asked to speak with the "youngest male 18 or older who is at home." If there is no eligible man at home, interviewers asked to speak with "the oldest woman 18 or older who lives in the household." This systematic respondent selection technique has been shown empirically to produce samples that closely mirror the population in terms of age and gender.

Weighting

Non-response in telephone interview surveys produces some known biases in survey-derived estimates because participation tends to vary for different subgroups of the population, and these subgroups are likely to vary also on questions of substantive interest. For example, men are more difficult than women to reach at home by telephone, and people with relatively low educational attainment are less likely than others to agree to participate in telephone surveys. In order to compensate for these known biases, the sample data are weighted in analysis.

The results have been weighted to adjust for variations in the sample relating to sex, age, race, and education. The weights are derived using an iterative technique that simultaneously balances the distributions of all weighting parameters.

Statistical Tests

PSRA calculated the effects of the sample weights on the statistical efficiency of the sample design, so that an adjustment can be incorporated into tests of statistical significance when using these data.

Based on this calculation, we calculate the 95 percent confidence interval for results expressed as percentages in this study as plus or minus 5 percentage points for results near 50% based on the total sample.

Response Rate

PSRA calculates a response rate as the product of three individual rates: the contact rate, the cooperation rate, and the completion rate. Of the residential numbers in the sample, 61 percent were contacted by an interviewer and 56 percent agreed to participate in the survey. Ninety-six percent were found eligible for the interview. Furthermore, 94 percent of eligible respondents completed the interview. Therefore, the final response rate is 32 percent.