On Civic Learning and Liberal Universities

This is Richard Brake at the Intercollegiate Studies Institute:

Part 2 is here.

Listening to the nature of the survey, I'm not sure if I'm convinced if college instruction is the most important factor that results in students becoming more liberal -- i.e., I'm not sure if this research design is effective in assessing changes over time. It's not a panel study. Dr. Brake discusses survey controls for other influences on opinion, etc., and the poll's based on a representative sample. The study isolates those with college and those without, holding constant other factors, such as levels of civic knowlege (multivariate regression methods are used ...). The study finds those with college training to be more liberal on particularly polarizing issues. I'd still like to see this supplemented with some kind of data on changes through an individual's life cycle (a long-term panel-cohort analysis). Nevertheless, it's a well done initial cut for what they're tying to measure. The summary's at the Civic Literacy homepage, "The Shaping of the American Mind: The Diverging Influences of the College Degree & Civic Learning on American Beliefs." From the summary:

Earning a bachelor’s degree exerts an independent, statistically significant influence on a person’s views on five of the thirty-nine survey propositions, most involving a narrow range of polarizing social and cultural issues. If two people otherwise share the same background characteristics, as well as equal civic knowledge, the one who graduates from college will be more likely than the one who does not to:

•Favor same same-sex marriage; and
•Favor abortion on demand.

Similarly, a college graduate will be less likely than a non-college graduate to:

•Believe anyone can succeed in America with hard work and perseverance; •Favor teacher-led prayer in public schools; and
•Believe the Bible is the Word of God.