The Education Effect: Higher Educational Qualifications are Robustly Associated with Beneficial Personal and Socio-political Outcomes

Easterbrook, Matthew J.; Kuppens, Toon; Manstead, Antony Stephen Reid

doi:10.1007/s11205-015-0946-1

Cited by 86 publications

(71 citation statements)

References 103 publications

(122 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…According to these arguments, the result is a relatively uncontroversial, legitimate social hierarchy based on educational attainment. Against that background, it is remarkable that research on the effects of education remains narrowly focused on the specific knowledge, skills, resources, and attitudes that education is supposed to transmit (Easterbrook, Kuppens, and Manstead 2016;Kingston et al 2003). The effect of education on social status, beyond the occupational structure, has hitherto rarely been investigated.…”

Section: Educational Classification and Subjective Social Statusmentioning

confidence: 99%

Education-Based Status in Comparative Perspective: The Legitimization of Education as a Basis for Social Stratification

et al. 2019

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Classical and recent accounts of education posit that education legitimately, and authoritatively, classifies individuals to positions of lower or higher status. However, despite these general theoretical claims, empirical evidence that provides an in-depth picture of the relationship between educational attainment and social status remains scarce. In this paper, based on a dataset of 31 countries (International Social Survey Programme), we investigate the extent to which education is related to subjective social status, the degree to which this is seen as legitimate, and how this relationship varies between countries. We contextualize this relationship with the influence of the centrality of education in countries (operationalized as the share of higher educated). Results showed that education is an important source of subjective social status for individuals across all countries, and is seen as relatively legitimate and uncontroversial among all educational groups. Moreover, among those who perceive education to be more important for status, subjective status differences between educational groups are larger. Additionally, in countries with larger shares of higher educated, educational differences in subjective social status correlate more strongly with whether or not people obtained a degree of higher (tertiary) education. Lastly, the relationship between education and subjective social status in these countries is more independent from other sources of status, such as income and gender. It therefore seems to be that as higher education becomes more central and widely shared in a society, rather than leveling social differences, ironically it also becomes more distinctive and diagnostic in distinguishing people along group lines.

show abstract

Section: Educational Classification and Subjective Social Statusmentioning

confidence: 99%

Education-Based Status in Comparative Perspective: The Legitimization of Education as a Basis for Social Stratification

et al. 2019

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…When researchers study intergroup attitudes, they commonly find a relationship between educational attainment and prejudice (Easterbrook et al 2015). For example, people with lower levels of education are generally more prone to prejudice than people with higher educational attainment (Coenders and Scheepers 2003).…”

Section: Schools and Egalitarian Attitudesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The 'sophistication hypothesis' (Highton 2009;Luskin 1990) suggests that people develop the necessary cognitive skills for democracy through education. The schooling process provides more sophisticated knowledge to people, and this information promotes the development of less prejudiced attitudes (Easterbrook et al 2015). Thus, schools which provide a more democratic environment are expected to foster more egalitarian attitudes.…”

Section: Schools and Egalitarian Attitudesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Role of Classroom Discussion

Carrasco

Irribarra

2018

IEA Research for Education

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Past research has shown that students in schools with greater levels of open classroom discussion, have more positive attitudes toward other groups and hold more democratic attitudes. Students do not learn citizenry only by knowledge acquisition; school practices such as classroom discussion foster critical thinking, help students to understand others and reduce closed-mindedness. Students with a higher exposure to classroom discussion were hypothesized to display more tolerant attitudes to other groups and hold more egalitarian values in general. The analytical strategy in this chapter uses a three-level path analysis with support for equal rights for women, for all ethnic/racial groups and for immigrants as outcomes. Appropriate variable centering and random intercepts for schools and countries enabled relationships between classroom discussion and the outcomes to be determined. Open classroom discussion was found to be positively related to egalitarian values across all samples, accounting for 5 to 8% of school variance, depending on the outcome.

show abstract

“…; Treas ). Specifically, education is associated with many components of liberal values, including trust in others (Easterbrook, Kuppens, and Manstead ), civic participation (Saha ; Welzel and Inglehart ), tolerance of immigrants (Kehrberg ), gender equality (Campbell and Horowitz ), and tolerance of homosexuality (Pampel ; Treas ).…”

Section: Educational Effects: Sophistication Socialization and Valumentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The development of education, especially higher education, is seen as an important factor in fostering liberal and tolerant personhood (Campbell and Horowitz 2016;Dey 1997;Meyer et al 2007;Treas 2002). Specifically, education is associated with many components of liberal values, including trust in others (Easterbrook, Kuppens, and Manstead 2016), civic participation (Saha 2000;Welzel and Inglehart 2005), tolerance of immigrants (Kehrberg 2007), gender equality (Campbell and Horowitz 2016), and tolerance of homosexuality (Pampel 2016;Treas 2002).…”

Section: Educational Effects: Sophistication Socialization and Valumentioning

confidence: 99%

Tolerance of Homosexuality in 88 Countries: Education, Political Freedom, and Liberalism

Zhang

Brym

2019

Sociological Forum

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Researchers have repeatedly found a positive correlation between education and tolerance. However, they may be victims of an unrepresentative sample containing only rich Western liberal democracies, where political agendas have a liberalizing effect on curricula. In this paper, we specify the relationship between education and liberal attitudes by analyzing data on educational attainment and tolerance of homosexuality (one dimension of liberalism) drawn from a heterogeneous sample of 88 countries over the period 1981–2014. We argue that nonliberal political agendas in some countries undermine the supposed universality of the positive relationship between educational attainment and tolerance of homosexuality. In relatively free countries, education is indeed associated with greater tolerance. However, in relatively unfree countries, education has no effect on tolerance and in some cases encourages intolerance. Specifically, our analysis demonstrates that education is associated with tolerance of homosexuality only when regimes energetically promote liberal‐democratic values. The larger theoretical point is that the agendas of political regimes shape civic values partly via education systems. Especially in an era when democracy is at risk in many countries, it is important to recognize that education is not always a benign force.

show abstract

The Education Effect: Higher Educational Qualifications are Robustly Associated with Beneficial Personal and Socio-political Outcomes

Cited by 86 publications

References 103 publications

Education-Based Status in Comparative Perspective: The Legitimization of Education as a Basis for Social Stratification

Education-Based Status in Comparative Perspective: The Legitimization of Education as a Basis for Social Stratification

The Role of Classroom Discussion

Tolerance of Homosexuality in 88 Countries: Education, Political Freedom, and Liberalism

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About