Beyond the Diploma Divide: Field of Education and Ideological Divisions among College Educated
66 Pages Posted: 14 Feb 2025
Date Written: November 11, 2024
Abstract
Education, conceived as the level of a person's education, is a key variable in explaining political attitudes and behavior. This study extends analysis of the effects of education to its substance-the field in which a person is educated. We adapt an educational skill schema developed by education sociologists to explain political attitudes and partisanship in Europe and the United States. An individual educated in a field conveying human-centered skills is likely to have distinctly more liberal attitudes on race, redistribution, the environment, trust in elections, and much more likely to identify with a progressive political party. Data from the General Social Survey and from surveys conducted by the authors in the United States and Europe suggest that a person's field of education explains more variation in liberal/conservative attitudes than whether that person went to college or not. In short, the reach of education for predicting political attitudes goes much beyond the diploma divide. Polarization in western societies extends to college educated. Dynamic data from Germany reveal that a person's field of education is not just a proxy for earlier socialization but has a direct effect during college.
Keywords: Education, field of education, democracy, Europe, United States, political behavior
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