Do the political attitudes of students change during their time in higher education?

Autor/in	Fryer, Tom
Titel	Do the political attitudes of students change during their time in higher education?
Quelle	In: Higher education, (2022) 3, S.563-590Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0018-1560
DOI	10.1007/s10734-022-00915-8
Schlagwörter	Higher education; Political attitudes; Graduate outcomes; Politics; Student politics
Abstract	Abstract Experience of higher education (HE) has come to characterise many contemporary political divisions, including those related to Brexit, Trump and coronavirus policy. However, the academic literature is unclear whether HE plays a causal role in changing peoples’ political attitudes or is simply a proxy. Furthermore, in many contexts, there is limited descriptive evidence on whether students’ political attitudes change during HE. This paper focuses on the UK, using data from the British Election Study, to make a twofold contribution. Firstly, the paper introduces recent political science theorising on the nature of contemporary political divisions, which has remained largely outside the HE literature to date. This theorising is illustrated through a cross-sectional analysis, comparing the political attitudes of those with and without experience of HE, showing that the former tend to be more left-leaning and less ethnocentric. Secondly, a longitudinal analysis is performed to assess how students’ political attitudes change during their time in HE. While in HE, students tend to make small movements to the left and become less ethnocentric, representing approximately 20–33% of the overall division between those with and without experience of HE. These findings are interpreted through a critical realist lens—they evidence that HE could have a causal role to play in creating contemporary political divisions. However, to establish whether HE does play a causal role, further intensive research is needed to explore how particular aspects of HE might bring about these changes and how this varies for different students in different contexts.
Erfasst von	OLC
Update	2024/1/01