Education and Political Engagement

Le, Kien and Nguyen, My (2019): Education and Political Engagement.

Abstract

While the robust and positive association between education and political engagement has been widely documented, the direct causal link is still a subject of debate. This study contributes to the ongoing debate by examining whether there exists a causal effect of education on political engagement. Exploiting the plausibly exogenous variation in education induced by the compulsory schooling reforms across 39 countries, we find that education cultivates political interest, promotes the acquisition of political knowledge, and fosters supportive attitudes towards political freedoms. Nevertheless, the better educated are no more likely to vote in elections nor adopt any specific position in the left-right political spectrum.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Political Engagement; Education; Compulsory Schooling
• Subjects: H - Public Economics > H0 - General; I - Health, Education, and Welfare > I2 - Education and Research Institutions; I - Health, Education, and Welfare > I2 - Education and Research Institutions > I26 - Returns to Education

References

Achen, C. H. (2002). Parental socialization and rational party identification. Political Behavior, 24(2), 151-170.

Torney-Purta, J., Schwille, J., and Amadeo, J. (1999). Civic Education Across Countries: Twenty-Four National Case Studies from the IEA Civic Education Project. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement.

Andolina, M. W., Jenkins, K., Zukin, C., & Keeter, S. (2003). Habits from home, lessons from school: Influences on youth civic engagement. PS: Political Science and Politics, 36(2), 275-280.

Le, K., & Nguyen, M. (2020). Armed conflict and birth weight. Economics & Human Biology, 39, 100921.

Dahl, R. A. (1973). Polyarchy: Participation and opposition. Yale University Press.

Brady, H. E. (1999). Political participation. Measures of political attitudes, 2, 737-801.

GESIS. (2018). ISSP 2016 Role of Government V, Variable Report: Documentation release 2018/09/19, related to the international dataset Archive-Study-No. ZA6900 Version 2.0.0. Variable Reports 2018|09. Cologne: GESIS.

Le, K., & Nguyen, M. (2021). In-utero Exposure to Rainfall Variability and Early Childhood Health. World Development, 144, 105485.

Westholm, A. (1999). The perceptual pathway: Tracing the mechanisms of political value transfer across generations. Political Psychology, 20(3), 525-551.

Herrnstein, Richard J., and Murray, Charles (1994). The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life. New York: The Free Press.

Dee, T. S. (2004). Are there civic returns to education?. Journal of Public Economics, 88(9-10), 1697-1720.

Le, K., & Nguyen, M. (2021). The psychological consequences of COVID-19 lockdowns. International Review of Applied Economics, 35(2), 147-163.

Galston, William A. (2001). Political knowledge, political engagement and civic education. Annual Review of Political Science.

Friedman, M. (1962). Capitalism and freedom. University of Chicago Press.

Wolfinger, R. E., & Rosenstone, S. J. (1980). Who votes?. Yale University Press.

Highton, B. (2009). Revisiting the relationship between educational attainment and political sophistication. The Journal of Politics, 71(4), 1564-1576.

Le, K., & Nguyen, M. (2020). Shedding light on maternal education and child health in developing countries. World Development, 133, 105005.

Kam, C. D., & Palmer, C. L. (2008). Reconsidering the effects of education on political participation. The Journal of Politics, 70 (3), 612-631.

Smith, A. (1776). 1986, The Wealth of Nations. The Essential Adam Smith (WW Norton & Company, New York).

Lassen, D. D. (2005). The effect of information on voter turnout: Evidence from a natural experiment. American Journal of Political Science, 49 (1), 103-118.

Le, K. (2020). Land use restrictions, misallocation in agriculture, and aggregate productivity in Vietnam. Journal of Development Economics, 145, 102465.

Campbell, D. E. (2006). Why we vote: How schools and communities shape our civic life (Vol. 87). Princeton University Press.

Zukin, C., Keeter, S., Andolina, M., Jenkins, K., & Carpini, M. X. D. (2006). A new engagement?: Political participation, civic life, and the changing American citizen. Oxford University Press.

Milligan, K., Moretti, E., & Oreopoulos, P. (2004). Does education improve citizenship? Evidence from the United States and the United Kingdom. Journal of Public Economics, 88(9-10), 1667-1695.

Le, K., & Nguyen, M. (2021). The impacts of temperature shocks on birth weight in Vietnam. Population and Development Review.

Nguyen, M. (2021). Mask mandates and COVID-19 related symptoms in the US. ClinicoEconomics and Outcomes Research: CEOR, 13, 757.

Niemi, Richard, and Junn, Jane (1998). Civic Education: What Makes Students Learn. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Le, K., & Nguyen, M. (2021). The impacts of rainfall shocks on birth weight in Vietnam. Journal of Development Effectiveness, 1-17.

Pekkarinen, T. (2008). Gender differences in educational attainment: Evidence on the role of tracking from a Finnish quasiexperiment. Scandinavian Journal of Economics, 110(4), 807-825.

Putnam, R. D. (1995). Tuning in, tuning out: The strange disappearance of social capital in America. PS: Political Science & Politics, 28(4), 664-683. [28] Rosenstone, Steven, and Hansen, John Mark (1993). Mobilization, Participation, and Democracy in America. New York: Macmillan.

Le, K., & Nguyen, M. (2021). How Education Empowers Women in Developing Countries. The BE Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, 21(2), 511-536.

Nie, Norman H., Junn, Jane, and Stehlik-Berry, Kenneth (1996). Education and Democratic Citizenship in America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Silles, M. A. (2009). The causal effect of education on health: Evidence from the United Kingdom. Economics of Education review, 28(1), 122-128.

Luskin, Robert C. (1990). Explaining political sophistication. Political Behavior, 12(4): 331355.

Verba, S., Schlozman, K. L., & Brady, H. E. (1995). Voice and equality: Civic voluntarism in American politics. Harvard University Press.

Le, K., & Nguyen, M. (2020). The impacts of farmland expropriation on Vietnam’s rural households. Review of Development Economics, 24(4), 1560-1582.

Lochner, L., & Moretti, E. (2004). The effect of education on crime: Evidence from prison inmates, arrests, and self-reports. American Economic Review, 94(1), 155-189.