Class Consciousness

 Ross Douthat had a column called "Will a Mask Debate Split Blue States"?  His argument was that views of masking (and other measures intended to reduce Covid, apart from vaccinations) depended not just on politics, but on social class.  The "professional class" is in favor, while in the rest of the public the general feeling "may be more like 'vaccinated and done.'"  Masking in schools is particularly likely to cause a split, since "statewide school-mask mandates in states like New York and Connecticut have kept kids masked in communities where otherwise the public-health regime has little purchase."

In late 2020, I published a piece arguing that support for Covid restrictions was pretty high in all "classes" (defined by educational groups, because of data limitations).  Support was somewhat higher among more educated people, but the differences were not very large.  But of course, a lot has happened since then, especially the availability of vaccines. So what are things like today?  An Axios/IPSOS survey from early October asked about the following measures:  a vaccine requirement from your employer, your state and local government requiring masks to be worn in all public places, your school district " requiring everyone in schools, including teachers, students, and administrators, to wear masks," a vaccine requirement for federal employees, a vaccine or testing requirement for all businesses with over 100 employees, and a vaccine requirement for health care workers.  The percent who strongly support or somewhat support each one:

Vaccine--your employer                        56%

Masks in public places                          64%

Masks in schools                                   66%

Vaccine--federal employees                  60%

Vaccine/testing-large employer            59%

Vaccine--health care                             66%

All of them get majority support, and a requirement for masks in schools is tied for the most popular, with almost two-thirds in favor.  Since there are roughly equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans, this suggests that any split over school mask policy will be larger (that is, closer to a 50/50 division) among Republicans.  This turns out to be true:  Democrats are united (93% in favor), but Republicans are divided, with 37% in favor and 63% opposed.  Independents are in between, with 67% in favor and 33% opposed.  

People with more education are more likely to support mask requirements in schools, but a majority of people without college degrees are in favor (62%, compared to 72% among those with a BA and 79% of those with a graduate degree).  The numbers in individual states are small, but 63% of people in states that voted for Trump support school mask requirements, against 68% in states that voted for Biden.  

So the basic point is that school masking requirements were generally popular, as of October 2021--they were not imposed on an unwilling public by the "professional class".  I haven't seen any more recent data, but it seems likely that they would be even more popular now given the rise of the Omicron variant.  The high level of public support for masking requirements in schools is understandable--people intuitively feel that children need to be protected, and also are comfortable with the idea of making children do things for their own good. 

Of course, with Covid children are a low-risk population, and you can make a case that masking has negative effects for their education and social development.  As Douthat notes, some journalists and social scientists have come out in favor of relaxing school mask requirements.  But among the general public, attitudes are essentially a matter of "do more" or "do less"--a factor analysis of the opinions mentioned above shows just one general factor, with no signs of a distinction between support for vaccine mandates and support for masking. 

[Data from the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research]