Education and Intergroup Attitudes: Moral Enlightenment, Superficial Democratic Commitment, or Ideological Refinement?

TLDR

Education has been argued to increase democratic commitment, yet it may only foster a superficial commitment, and an enlightened perspective is less vulnerable to intergroup negativism. The study reviews the debate and empirically tests intergroup attitudes using national survey data, then proposes a new approach based on different assumptions about intergroup attitudes and educational institutions. The authors analyze national survey data on intergroup beliefs, feelings, contact predispositions, and policy orientations among men toward women, whites toward blacks, and nonpoor toward the poor. The analysis finds that education neither liberates from intergroup negativism nor merely promotes superficial democratic commitment; instead, dominant groups develop ideologies that the well‑educated members of those groups advance, and the study documents large, lasting positive effects on values, knowledge, receptivity, and information‑seeking. Citation: Hyman and Wright, Education's Lasting Influence on Values (1979:61).

Abstract

enlightened perspective that is less vulnerable to the narrow appeals of intergroup negativism. Other investigators have argued that education increases commitment to democratic norms, but only at a superficial level. We review the arguments from that debate and then subject them to empirical test with national survey data on the intergroup beliefs, feelings, predispositions for personal contact, and policy orientations of men toward women, of whites toward blacks, and of the nonpoor toward the poor. The results of that comprehensive analysis fail to support the view either that education produces liberation from intergroup negativism or that it produces a superficial democratic commitment. With that ascertained, we depart from the confines of past debate and propose afresh approach that rests on different assumptions about the nature of both intergroup attitudes and educational institutions. We argue that dominant social groups routinely develop ideologies that legitimize and justify the status quo, and the well-educated members of these dominant groups are the most sophisticated practitioners of their group's ideology. We interpret our data from this perspective and suggest that the well educated are but one step ahead of their peers in developing a defense of their interests that rests on qualification, individualism, obfuscation, and symbolic concessions. The large, lasting, and diverse good effects on values found in this study, coupled with the very large, pervasive, and enduring effects in heightening knowledge, receptivity to knowledge, and information-seeking documented in our earlier study, establish that formal education has long been an important force throughout America in molding character as well as intellect. Hyman and Wright, Education's Lasting Influence on Values (1979:61)