CHAPTER 1 Texas Culture and Diversity Learning Objectives
Analyze the relationships among Texas political culture, its politics, and its public policies. Differentiate among the various types of state political cultures and the attributes that describe the major Texas regions. Analyze Texans’ political struggles over equal rights and evaluate their success in Texas politics today and in their impact on the state’s political future. Apply what you have learned about Texas political culture.
Summary Overview Chapter 1 introduces the concept of political culture and examines the various factors that have influenced Texas’ social and political identity. A political culture reflects the political values and beliefs of people. It explains how people feel about their government—their expectations of what powers it should have over their lives and what services it should provide. Texans’ predominantly conservative political culture is reflected in voters’ Republican affiliation and in the state’s conservative public policies. Texas’ size and diverse geography have contributed to its unique blend of culture. Texas can be divided into a series of cultural regions with differing characteristics and traditions: (1) East Texas, (2) the Gulf Coast, (3) South Texas, (4) Far West Texas, (5) the German Hill Country, (6) West Texas, (7) the Panhandle, (8) North Texas, and (9) Central Texas. These regions display varying combinations of moral, traditionalistic, and individualistic cultures. Much of the history of Texas has reflected its traditionalistic and individualistic cultures, with women, racial and ethnic minorities, and LGBT facing significant struggles in their quests for equality. Women were not legally equal to men in early Texas and their path to equality has been a winding and occasionally hesitant one. Activists finally won the long battle for the right to vote in 1918. It was not until 1972 that women won equal rights in real estate, contracts, divorce, child custody, and property rights. The judicial decision in Roe v. Wade that further clarified the right of women to control their reproductive functions is still at the center of a national controversy. Civil rights have always been an issue, and the dominant Anglo Texans once believed that the primary purpose for Africans and Latinos being in Texas was to supply sources of cheap labor. Modern Texans can take no pride in the historical treatment of both these groups, who were undereducated and exploited for their labor and lived under a state-enforced caste system. The enduring consequences of discrimination are still evident in Texas, as is illustrated by lower levels of health care, education, and income. © 2016 Cengage Learning. All rights reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.