La educación universitaria aumenta el prejuicio ideológico

Everyone knows that education makes people more tolerant, right? Well, yes, if you focus on the traditional targets of intolerance that are generally studied in the social sciences, such as members of ethnic, racial, or religious outgroups. A college education seems to make people more cosmopolitan and less prejudiced. But what if you look at tolerance of ideological outgroups? New research by P.J. Henry and Jaime Napier finds that the education effect reverses. College graduates on both sides of the political spectrum are less tolerant of their political opponents than are people who have less education. In this post I summarize that article and draw out its implications for the current debate about free speech and the intellectual climate on college campuses.

Full Reference: Henry, P.J. & Napier, J.L. (2017). Education is related to greater ideological prejudice. Public Opinion Quarterly, 81, 930-942.

Abstract: Decades of research have shown that education reduces individuals’ prejudices toward people who belong to different groups, but this research has focused predominantly on prejudice toward ethnic/racial groups, immigrant groups, and general nonconformists. However, it is not clear whether education reduces other prejudices against groups along different dimensions, including ideological identification. An analysis of American National Election Studies data from 1964 to 2012 shows that education is related to decreases in interethnic/interracial prejudice, but also to increases in ideological (liberal vs. conservative) prejudice. This finding could not be explained simply by the greater polarization of the American electorate in the past twenty years. The results require rethinking how and why education is associated with reduced prejudice for certain groups but not others.

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