Education and Ethnic Prejudice in Europe: Explanations for cross-national variances in the educational effect on ethnic prejudice

Abstract

Education is often found to be a strong determinant of ethnic prejudice. However,\nthere is preliminary evidence that this educational effect varies across countries. Moreover, there are also theoretical arguments to expect cross-national variances in the educational effect on ethnic prejudice. From both a cultural and structural perspective, we set out to explain these cross-national variances in the educational effect. Results of multilevel analyses on data from 11 European countries show that the cultural perspective is more fruitful to explain cross-national variances in the strength of the educational effect on ethnic prejudice than the structural perspective: a country’s democratic tradition and degree of religious heterogeneity are important for the strength of the educational effect on ethnic prejudice, whereas a country’s ethnic composition and unemployment rate are less relevant.