Wednesday, July 05, 2006

Political moderation shrinks as years of schooling grow



This graph shows the political orientation of people who completed various years of education. Starting from the bottom color and moving up, extreme liberals are disproportionately high school dropouts and overeducated eggheads. In addition, more years of education is accompanied by a greater share of liberals and slight liberals. Moderates are concentrated among the least educated, and are just barely the modal category among those with the most years of school. Conservatives and slight conservatives are found most often among the sensible, college-educated, but extreme conservatives are most often found among high school dropouts.

3 comments:

  1. Anonymous9:46 AM

    I've noticed the same things in the GSS.

    My guess is that as people become smarter they become more sure of their political views because they understand the issues better.

    And there are few "extreme" conservatives among the highly educated because these people are usually conservative on economic issues but "liberal" on issues involving religion.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous10:04 AM

    Enjoyed a lot! »

    ReplyDelete

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