COMMUNITY LEADERSHIP, EDUCATION, AND POLITICAL BEHAVIOR.

Measures of political involvement, perceptions of political cleavages, and political beliefs are developed from interviews conducted in 1962 with formal leaders and voters in four middle-sized Wisconsin cities. Leaders and voters are divided into those with some college education and those with less than college. The relative effect of holding a leadership position versus having some college education upon political attitudes and behavior is the key problem of the paper. Both leadership and education are found to be independently related to all attitudes and behavior analyzed. Leadership is more important than education with regard to the "quantity" of political involvement; education is more important than leadership with regard to the "quality" or "direction" of political beliefs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]