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What is the liberalizing potential of higher education?: an analysis of academic fields and anti-immigrant sentiment across 32 countries
Umeå University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Sociology. Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, CA, Stanford, USA.ORCID iD: 0000-0001-9023-7316
Umeå University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Sociology.ORCID iD: 0000-0003-4203-5394
Centre on Migration, Policy and Society, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK; Institute for Future Studies, Stockholm, Sweden.ORCID iD: 0000-0001-5525-468X
2025 (English)In: British Journal of Sociology, ISSN 0007-1315, E-ISSN 1468-4446, Vol. 76, no 5, p. 1205-1211Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

The link between educational attainment and attitudes towards out‐groups stands out as one of the most consistent statistical associations in the social and political sciences. However, a recent analysis of survey data from the United States finds that the relationship between higher education and out‐group prejudice depends on the content of education. In this Research Note, we replicate that study's analysis of tertiary‐level academic majors within a European context and extend it to include academic specializations below the tertiary level. Our analyses of European Social Survey (ESS) data, spanning 32 countries and over 120,000 respondents, reveal substantial variation in the association between field of study and anti‐immigrant prejudice. Specifically, we find that individuals with degrees in arts, humanities, and social sciences express more positive views towards immigrants than those with degrees in other fields. A similar, though less pronounced, pattern emerges among individuals with lower levels of educational attainment. These findings challenge simplistic and politicized notions of the impact of higher education, offering a more nuanced understanding of educational attainment and its so‐called “liberalizing effect.”

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
London: John Wiley & Sons, 2025. Vol. 76, no 5, p. 1205-1211
Keywords [en]
attitudes, education, Europe, immigration, liberalizing effect, prejudice
National Category
Sociology (Excluding Social Work, Social Anthropology, Demography and Criminology)
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-241419DOI: 10.1111/1468-4446.70008ISI: 001524494000001Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-105010057311OAI: oai:DiVA.org:umu-241419DiVA, id: diva2:1976439
Part of project
Examining the liberalizing effect of higher education: A longitudinal cohort study of a university student population, Swedish Research Council
Funder
Swedish Research Council, 2019-02996Available from: 2025-06-24 Created: 2025-06-24 Last updated: 2025-12-12Bibliographically approved

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Eger, Maureen A.Hjerm, MikaelVelásquez, Paolo

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