05/17/22
College and the Culture War:
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so today will be talking about an article that I published with Andrew miles called
culture and the culture war: assessing higher education influence on moral attitude
it's an article that deals with a bit of like contentious topic the findings are little
provocative I guess cause it deals with some current issues but as is the case all research
you know it's not a closed book, I think for those of you that read the according to limit
at least quite a bit of room for interpretation see
Higher Education and Partisan Realignment
- College-educated mostly voted Republican before the 1970s, but came to mostly vote
Democrat by the 2000s
- Negative feelings towards higher education increased by 22% among Republicans
between 2015-2019
- Critiques of academia have become a key issue animating the conservative movement
(Figure)
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sociologists have had a long history of implicating the education, questions of morality
and moral community specifically
so according to durckheim it was through education that societies would reproduce
their values and traditions and their collective identity and the young and it was where
they were sort of initiated in the moral community and where societies heritage
was transmitted source of cohesion in community
more recently rather than the source of moral cohesion higher education has been at
the centre of some of society's most pretentious Ritz ,so in particular and this is
especially in America where this study was based on American politics, but partisan
politics in America have increasingly grafted on to the college cleavage in changing ways
so while the college educated disproportionately voted republican before the 1970s and
around the 1970s they came to mostly vote Democrat by the 2000s and this gap really
accelerated with the election trump
so republican analysts has towards higher education as grown as result
so between 2015 and 2019 the number of Republicans who reported believing that
higher education has this negative effect or the country increased by 22% but while this
uptake and distrust is relatively recent conservative critiques against higher education
are not, so as early as 1959 Russell Kirk was this pioneer of American conservativism,
argued that college students are being defrauded by social indoctrination because of
scholarship and since then it's become this kind of staple issue among conservative
intellectuals and gradually has been diffused to the rank and file members of the
movement, it has become one of the key issues animating the right today
Scholarship on Higher Education’s role in ‘Culture War’ Conflict Inconclusive
- Questions over whether moral change occurs in universities
o Research highlight self-selection over socialization
- Questions over what moral change looks like
o 1980’s critiques of ‘lax’ moral relativism vs 2010’s critiques of ‘puritanical’
moralism
Research Question: Does higher education influences moral attitudes related to ‘cultural war’
conflict, and in what ways?
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but despite these polemics scholarly understanding of the topic is much less clear, so it's
generally accepted that (due date of) lean more aggressive in their moral sensibilities
but it's not so clear whether this is because of socialization in higher education, it's not
clear if this is change that happens while students are at university
so many scholars actually highlight the role of self-selection instead, so this is that
people that are already liberal go into to higher education disproportionally and this
raises questions over whether meaningful moral change occurs in universities at all
And it's not entirely clear what the resulting moral profile of the average highly
educated person looks like
so in the 1980s the religious right often critiqued college educated liberals for their
moral relativism attacking what they perceive to be this kind of permissiveness and
immoral affairs particularly related to sex, gender, and drug use
but more recently a lot of these critiques against the Academy are because they
portrayed college campuses as this kind of site that is (pure morcar technical grand)
protective progressivism which highlights a more absolute moral righteousness that
seemingly at odds with like the laxity of relativism
so this raises questions over what the moral profile of the college educated look like
so despite being this visible arena or culture war conflict higher education's influence
on moral attitudes remains unclear and so this is this forms the backdrop of my analysis
which looks to answer these questions on whether higher education influences moral
attitudes related to culture war conflict and in what ways
‘Culture War’ Conflict in the United States
- Associated with rise of New Christian Right during the 1980s
- Refers to moral conflict between liberals and conservatives
- Contested term
o Fake polarization?
o Most citizens ideologically mixed
- Still, research documents growing affective polarization between liberals and
conservatives, as well as differences in moral attitudes
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but it's important to begin with a brief description of culture war
so in the United states culture war as a term was associated with the rise of the new
Christian rights during the 1980s and typically refers to the moral conflict between
liberals and conservative, it had this( food) precedents in like the debates between
modernists and fundamentalists before and I go there with liberal made my
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Protestantism, more orthodox churches, but as the term the culture war really came up
in the 1980s or like this kind of culture war as we understand it today
but the dramatic nature of the term skies and more nuanced reality
some social scientists contend that it's important as primarily symbolic, so the culture
war shapes discourse that politicians media will draw on but it's not this accurate
portrayal of opinion
so when you look at some of the studies on people on the issue positions the stances on
different issues that people hold it suggests that most people are relatively moderate in
their views and they support some conservative positions some liberal positions, more
of a mixed bag ideologically, this kind of idea of polarization (miss justice hello defined)
to elites
but even without this kind of polarization on issue positions research still finds these
meaningful differences between liberals and conservatives that affect how people
vote who their friends with, how they feel about those on the opposite side of the
spectrum and your research you find this growing affect on polarization or there's
greater anger between the left and the right's since the 80s, since culture war
but more importantly these kinds of efforts to prove or disprove the existence of the
culture war often distract from a fundamental claim of these theories which is that
moral differences are at the heart of the many of these social and political conflicts
So what are some of these differences between liberals and conservatives that
supposedly (lie outside/inside the core of culture wars)
Moral Differences Between Partisans
- Hunter: Orthodoxy vs Progressivism
o Conservatives believe in transcendent source of moral truth, Liberals more
contextualism, regarding moral truth as subject to change
- Moral foundation’s theory: five psychological foundations that motivate judegements of
right and wrong
o Individualizing foundations: care/ harm; fairness/betrayal
o Binding Foundations: Loyalty/ Betrayal; Authority/ Subversion;
Purity/Degradation
- These are the main dependent variable in study ‘
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so scholars oppose several theories of how morality leads to differing political attitudes
identity, speakers
so according t this sociologist James hunter was actually responsible for introducing the
culture war turn in his book the culture war, he responsible for introducing this framing
discourse but according to his theory conflict stems from these competing moral
epistemology, these competing ways that people understand what is moral
namely he saw this as a conflict between progressivism and orthodox
so orthodoxy sees truth coming from this kind of external definable transcendent
authority that provides these fixed standards for behavior, so typically this sometimes
the written word of God is thought of as this kind of orthodox source of morality
sometimes it could also be found in expense perennial traditions,
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progressivism sees truth as relative, so that it's subject to revisions it's not this based
transcendent entity but that it changes itself with the changing needs of society
so orthodoxy is generally associated with political conservatism and progressivism is
tide to liberalism but while these differences pertain to the different forms it can have a
transcendent versus the tactual basis of morality, more recent accounts focus on the
different contents of moral concerns, so how liberals and conservatives have different
perception of perceptions of what is morally worthy, what is sacred what isnt and
moral foundations theory which was a theory brought up by Jonathan Hyde social
psychologists posits 5 psychological foundations that motive right law say kind of activist
intuitive way what is moral is what kind of struck the strike Saturday got
but they say that people have these different foundations different sensibilities of what
really strikes them as moral behaviour and the way that these are divided they have
individualizing foundations of care and justice and binding foundations of royalty
authority and punity
so individual input individualizing foundations privilege the well being and rights of
individual So what what is Morley safer here's the individual protecting them from harm
or ensuring that they have fair outcomes, that they're not being cheated against and
binding foundations refer to different moral concerns that are more related to how the
serve to uphold social order or group cohestion this would be something like if you think
it's obeying your authority is a sort of moral trait or loyalty group, loyalty not doing
something against your ingroup r or purity preserving the purity for sanctity on certain
things
the research finds support for both these theories with positions on these different
questions of orthodoxy, progressivism and this moral foundation questions explaining
considerable variation in where one stands on the political spectrum
So when conservatives indorse individualizing and binding foundations about equally
which could see in this PowerPoint and they tend to be more orthodox which isn't in
that in that figure there but something more related to James hunters, liberals are
distinguished derivatives containing less likely to endorse binding moral concerns, they
tend to be more relativistic than one thoughts
but given the these differences in this picture these are the kinds of moral attitudes
that we considered as the main dependent variables in the analysis
dependent variables or the outcome we're looking at how do people's positions on
these kinds of questions change
How Higher Education May Influence Moral Attitudes
- Cognitive hypothesis: higher learning increases students' ability to manage complexity,
engage in abstract thought, and take the perspectives of others, contributing to more
liberal attitudes
o Decreased binding foundations, increased relativism for all students?
- Socialization Hypothesis: moral change depends on transmission of implicit norms
promoted through different fields of study
o Liberal moral change mostly confined to humanities, arts, and social sciences
students?
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Official Culture Hypothesis: students actively taught virtue of institutionally sanctioned
beliefs, assimilating the 'truth' of morally-correct knowledge
o Growing moral certitude that departs from relativism?
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OK so how might higher education shape is for
There is considerable research on higher education's effects on most political attitudes
and not as much on moral change but they're useful to consider as hypothesis what we
might expect for moral change
so from this research scholars generally content that higher education can have this
liberalizing effect on political attitudes but they differ on whether this change is
universal that means that it applies to all college students broadly or whether it's more
particular and rooted in some sort of subcultures where it’s some specific socializing
experience
so one position known as the cognitive hypothesis suggests that higher learning
increases the ability of students to manage complexity to engage in this kind of abstract
thought and to take the perspective of others and the idea is that these enhanced
cognitive abilities lead to lower levels of outgroup prejudice, more tolerance and more
skepticism tham towards tradition so it would be abstract attitude you're able to put
yourself in the shoes of someone else and according to this hypothesis it’s supposed to
promote more liberal attitudes and then to the extent that higher education advances
sophistication cognitive sophistication across all fields the cognitive hypothesis
proposes this general liberalizing effects on the moral beliefs of all students
but other scholars endorsed a socialization hypothesis that argues that it's not
something about how smart you get, how cognitively sophisticated you get that there's
but that they argued that change moral changes is contingent on the transmission of
particular norms that could be transmitted through peer groups or through different
institutional contexts
so common way that scholars have addresses the socialization hypothesis lookiinh how
higher educations affects very fields of study, so in this view fields of study act as these
kinds of subcultures, different implicit normative values promoted through curricular
content
so the degree is in degrees in liberal arts exposed students cultural diversity in ways
that promote social empathy, curiosity, critical orientations that in turn are supposed
to foster liberal attitudes and disciplines in business or agriculture by contrast are
focused on solving more immediate problems that are within existing social
arrangements that this could really forceful legitimacy of social orders and might
promote more conservative attitudes that defend the status quo compared to
students in the liberal arts
but altogether the socialization hypothesis suggest that morea changes primarily this
byproduct of implicit learning different fields with the liberalizing effect mostly
confined to those that major and socialize social sciences Humanities and and arts but
being different in different fields
in addition to this version of the socialization hypothesis there's also these conflict
theories of official culture which presents an alternative version of the socialization
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hypothesis, So while in the other version you might think that liberal arts might promote
these more relativistic attitudes by virtue of this exposure to diversity, this more kind of
conflict theory based on official culture socialization hypothesis suggest that universities
might promote moral certainty Rather than or maybe even in addition to relatives
what does this mean so in this view students do not passively grow into moral
relativism by virtue of their exposure to cultural diversity, but rather scholars clear
focus on how they are actively taught the virtue of institutionally sanctioned beliefs,
so gaining credentials becomes this way of being initiated into the class of experts
sometimes called the elect, we theredistinguished by their access to the truth of morally
correct knowledge and it gets kind of seed by virtue of their regular recognition of their
institutional authority, speak assume this role of historians of virtual and make some
distinct from others who are sort of under ORS parochial bigoted views and they get this
pipe word to of moving up in the institution????
so while this is sometimes been understood as conservatising students into the status
quo by giving this them this kind of more definite stronger moral self-assurance, recent
developments suggests that official beliefs also may increasingly reflect liberal moral
concerns and this way this hypthesis somewhat parallels some of their right wing
culture work critiques of higher education as this site of culture of victimhood or like
wokeness to use like this colloquial terms which also kind of signal this more like
absolute assertion of liberal sensibilities although there are some there are nuances
they kind of parallel one another in certain ways but to the extent that
this hypothesis is true it follows that students might may adopt more liberal sensibilities
but depart from some aspects of relativism and from the typical liberal moral profile by
developing a moral assurance that they these views are universally correct and some of
you have my read Marx Weber and this is kind of like a trait he diagnosed in the
educated class across history or generally like the Chinese literati the Indian brahmin
class and you like beating western bureaucrats
Challenges to Moral Change
- Does students experience meaningful moral change at university?
- The settled-disposition model contends that beliefs mostly crystallize at a young
age leaving little room for change late in life course
- Moral differences across higher education attributed to self-selection, whereby
people who enroll in higher education already differing in their moral
commitments from those who do not.
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anyways these positions all suggest that moral attitudes undergo this kind of
meaningful change during higher education
but other research leads us to be skeptical that that higher education really is this site of
meaningful moral change
so the settled disposition model contends that beliefs mostly crystallized at a young age
and so the leaving little room for change later on in life course, the idea is that people
get deeply ingrained in their beliefs even before they go into university
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and some research suggests that moral beliefs in particular have this more uniquely
deep ingrained compared to other attitudes, this dovetails other accounts that morals
being kind of tide to these innate instincts/ intuitions in early learning and crystallising
before enrollment into higher education’s suggesting that there's little room for change
once students reach university
and the second related issue is the relationship between higher education and attitudes
and now this may merely reflect selection processes, so moral change might just be an
artifact of selection so those who enroll in higher education might already differ in
their more commitments from those who don't
so for example the research finds that individuals from high income families are both
more likely to pursue higher education and more likely to express principles that are
consistent with the liberal moral profile then families with fewer social and economic
resources
If you are from a high income family that might make you more likely to go into higher
education but also more likely to be more liberal to begin with and it also might
involve this kind of deliberate self selection as well
so there's a great book by Neil gross that talks about this with liberals disproportionately
pursuing a higher learning because they perceive an affinity between the kind of
stereotypical liberal academic environment in their own self-deception and their own
identities
conservatives on the other hand might perceive this kind of clash and so might opt out
of that and go into other careers to avoid any kind of value conflict
but to summarize these theories kind of lead us to believe that maybe there isn't this
kind of meaningful moral changing, maybe it's just about selection that people that even
if we see differences of you know the highly educated being more liberal then those
without college but maybe this is just because there are already more liberal to begin
with before enrollment so that the relationship between higher education and moral
attitudes might be spurious
Data: National Study of Youth and Religion
Wave 1
2003
Wave 2
2005
Wave 3
2007-20008
Wave 4
2013
Ages 23-39
Moral Attitudes
Moral progressivism: “[t]he world is always changing and we should adjust our views of
what is morally right and wrong to reflect those changes”
Moral relativism: [m]orals are relative, that there are no definite rights and wrongs for
everybody.”
Moral concern for others: individualizing foundations
Moral concern for order: binding foundations
Education Variables:
- Level of higher education (some college, bachelors degree, pursuing graduate
studies)
- Major field of study (Humanities, arts, and social sciences; STEM;
Business/Agriculture Education)
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so we have this hypothesis that suggests different ways that higher education can affect
moral change but also these alternative hypothesis that there might not be any actual
meaningful moral change
so how do we address these questions the way that me and Andrew miles wenet about
this is we looked at the national study of youth and relgion which is this longitudinal
survey that allows us to look at within person changes of peoples moral attitudes, so
that then controls for selection effects because we could see how people thought
during wave 1 and whether they changed at a later time
so this was a elobarte survey that I wasn't involved in collecting because this data
collection started first in 2002 2003 and it included 3370 teenagers between the ages of
13 and 17, these teenagers they also had their parents interviewed at the time but this
same group of teenagers was then interviewed again in 2005 and then for third time in
2007 2008 and finally by 2013 when they were between the ages of 23 and 29
and this is the sruvey initially designed to see who becomes less religious or more
religious but it had all these questions related to morality but they also had these
questions related to educational attainment and field of study these were the kind of
variables that we considered but in our analysis
the dependent variable/ outcome variable were these moral attitudes and I've listed
here the question and that we consider it to see how people changed over
these kinds of questions that research finds liberals and conservatives tend to differ on
so it kind of (SF) or some of the culture word divides
so we consider moral progressivism which asked respondents the extent to which they
agree that the world is always changing and we should adjust our views of what is
morally right and wrong to reflect those changes, so you see it has that contextualist
view/ progressive view that morals ought to change
questions for moral relativism which that roles are relative and there's no definite right
and wrong for everybody
and then moral concerned for others was the individualizing foundations that I talked
about from the moral foundations theory, so the idea of acting individuals from harm
and ensuring their safety and fairness
moral concerned for order which are the finding foundations which refer more to you
know traditionalism what keeps order including no authority loyalty sancity
and then measure education we looked at both the level of higher education which lets
us look at just how much higher education people pursue weather pursue graduate
studies for just bachelors degree some college and then and then let's look at more
general effect the higher education and we also look at major field of study which we
grouped in humanities arts and social sciences as one group, stem majors as another
business in agriculture majors with another and finally those who majored in education
Percent Agree (agree/strongly agree) on Moral Progressivism
by Educational Attainment and Major Field of Study
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Percent Agree (agree/strongly agree) on Moral Relativism by
Educational Attainment and Major Field of Study
OK so let's start with the analysis
let's start by looking at moral relativism and progressivism
so this figure plots the proportion of respondents who either agreed or strongly agreed
that morals are relative or sorry panel a looks at moral progressivism, so people that
either agreed or strongly agreed that morals should change as the world changes
and then panel B is and whether they believe, whether they agree that there is no
definite moral truth - moral relativism
the portions are shown by level of higher education and field of study
so just from these descriptive statistics at way before we find some evidence that
suggestive of support for both the cognitive and socialization hypothesis in sofar as
one that we fine moral progressivism on the left there seems to be the highest with
grad studies and bachelor degrees with increases with higher education and it seems
to be the highest among humanities arts and social science students so that would
because of socialization hypothesis and this general effect of higher education seems to
support maybe the cognitive
in contrast to early conservative critiques of the highly educated the more relativistic
we see here that higher educational attainment is associated with less moral
relativists, so people with bachelor degrees and graduate degrees or more likely to
believe in a definite right and wrong then those who have no higher education and we
see that about stem majors and those in humanities arts and social sciences, i moral
relativism also appears to be lower suggesting that there is this greater self-assurance
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these definite rights and wrong so this kind of contrast these earlier conservative
critiques of the university being ( ) moral relativism
these are only descriptive statistics so they're not actually looking for how people
change overtime but what happens when we look at change overtime
HE Effect on Moral Progressivism (Panel A) and
Moral Relativism (Panel B)
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so next we turned to this what's called multivariate analysis that addresses the
possibility that these descriptive patterns might be due to selection effect
here we look at the effect of with in-person change and looking at people with
bachelors and graduate degrees across different fields of study but again we find that
even when we control for these kind of unobserved confounding variables look at just
like how people change we see that higher education promotes this greater moral
progressivism, so this kind of against the selection hypothesis we see that thre does
seem to be this kind of meaningful moral change and the effect appears to be the
strongest for moral progressivism among humanities arts and social science students
that are pursuing their graduate studies and then turn into the predictions for moral
relativism we find that getting a bachelor’s degree in any field decreases moral
relativism compared to those who do not enroll
so we see this general fact higher education here where it happens across all fields and
we see this kind of substantial effect which is again against the selection of the
hypothesis suggesting that people really do change their positions on these moral
questions throughout their years in higher education
there is this kind of moral change from that it's like statistically significant doesn't
necessarily mean that it's like substantively meaningful
so one way that we tried to assess this is we tried to compare the effects for higher
education through effects of other social institutions that are understood as intimately
tided to morality
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so we did this by considering the affect religiosity, you can see there is at the bottom of
each of those figures
religiosity is was composed of the scale that captured the intensity of both religious
practice and the intensity of religious beliefs, so substantively a one standard deviation
difference in religiosity which is like what we see at the bottom here the X scales looking
at standard deviation differences, but onc one standard deviation difference religiosity
roughly amounts to someone who is actively religious versus someone who is not, so
this is so that's what like this effect of religiosity is shown, basically the difference
between someone who is religious and someone who is not and how that changes
overtime
they see that each increase and religiosity decreases more progresivim by 0.13 standard
deviation roughly half the size of the largest predicted educational effects on moral
progressivism but in the opposite direction
so religiosity makes you less morally progressive so said to believe moral beliefs
shouldn't change ( ) whereas higher education especially in like the humanities arts and
social sciences tends to make you more progressive
but like higher education we see in panel B when we're looking at the effect on moral
relativism religiosity decreases moral relativism so both higher education and
religiosity increase this kind of belief in a definite moral right but again we see that
the that it's about half the size of higher education's strongest effects
so from this that follows one that we could see that there does seem to be this kind of
meaningful moral change in how students respond to these moral questions over time
here to others that's kind of evidence against the selection hypothesis but we also see
that higher education affects arrival can even offset the impact of adolescent
religiosity language more striking given the explicit moral agenda of organized religion
but this kind of tells us that but there meaning moral change happening
HE effects on Individualizing Foundations (Panel B) and
Binding Foundations (Panel B)
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but so yeah our analysis this analysis suggests that pursuing higher education often
promotes this moral profile characterized by a progressive belief that borrows ought to
be adapted to changing societal needs accompanied by this conviction in this kind of
definite moral truths
the content of these moral truths still remains unclear and to address this we go to look
at these we go to look at these kinds of individualizing foundations/finding foundations
So what the paper is called a moral concern for others and moral concerns order
so panel a here looks at individualizing foundations we see some patterns so first with
the individualizing foundations it seems like it has no effect and when youre looking at
whether an affect is significant we want to look at these like bars and like the margins of
those bars whether they crossed that zero in the middle or not but in this case we see
none of it, all of those bars overlap is zero which suggests that there not so we see no
moral concerns for other over, everyone seems to endorse these principles of care and
justice to protect the individuals
but the story is different it or concern for social order for the moral sanctity of
traditional
so educational attainment progressively diminishes concern for a social order with each
increase in attainment corresponding with these points lower finding foundations, but
we see that these results vary across fields
so we're looking at education majors at the bottom there the effects aren't statistically
significant, but they lean in a more conservative directions so finding foundations
appear to get stronger among education grads and among the business spreads they
don't see change as well but we see that the effects are strongest among the humanities
arts and social sciences and to a little lower degree among stem majors and for students
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in these majors they place less value on they're finding foundations and to kind of
compare this to a religiosity,
to assess how meaningful effect are we see that the that the effect is like so so one
thing that we did new articles we looked at evangelical Christians were the largest
religious denomination on the survey tend to be 1 standard deviation higher on
religiosity and we so we compare and find that they have 0.36 centre standard deviation
higher on moral concern or moral order than others and we see that this is roughly the
same magnitude of obtaining a bachelor’s degree increments or in social sciences and
smaller than the effect of Pursuing these degrees but in Graduate School
overall as with the prior analysis of world progressivism and relativism higher education
was seeking at this important effect on moral concern of order that rivals to influence
the religiosity
HASS effect for Students from Different
Ideological backgrounds
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so our analysis underscores higher educations or informal socialization and we find that
in particular the students that are majoring in the humanities arts and social scientists
have these strong effects our moral relativism by decreasing it but increasing
progressivism and decreasing a concern for social order and by increasing more
progressivism and decreasing the concern for social order this signals is kind of moral
change that direct students towards this more typical liberal moral profile but in
decreasing world relativism is denotes a departure from the typical liberal profile
so this this trade of lower moral relativism is typical conservatives, but among these
students we find that this conservative trade, this moral certitude and orthodoxy
increasingly attached in itself is more liberal moral sensibility
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one thing that we looked at just kind of like look at him or find a grade analysis we want
understand what's the scope of this change does it apply evenly in different groups and
look at this we examined how these the effects of these degrees differ across students
whose parents hold different political ideologies
with the survey interviewed parents have responded to the first way and they ask them
about their politics
so here we looked at how students from survey of conservative households moderate
households and liberal households how big different in their moral change after
university and we find that the effect of majoring in the humanities arts and social
sciences on moral relativism or nonsignificant for students from liberal household and
the effects on more progressivism where those from conservative households are also
non significant
so this suggests that you know given that more progressivism is this more
conservative traits and moral relativism is this more liberal trade the fact that it that
liberal households don't become less relativistic and students from conservative
households don't become more progressive suggests that there are these alignments
to moral change that there is this like parental influence that might partly shield
students from all the change that departs from their familial meaning
but there's also limits to this kind of generational rcontinuity, so although the effect
sizes vary the pattern is the same across all subgroups so we find that change is most
pronounced among students from moderate households also so perhaps owing to their
lack of ideological commitments before, so the fact that their parents aren't strongly
tide to any political ideas before
so these students from moderate households experience change in all three variables
resulting in increased endorsement of moral progressisim, decreased concern for social
order and a growing sense of certainty that there are these Steven had brought the
rights and wrongs
so the fact that these patterns of change or generally consistent across students from
different ideological backgrounds as strongest among those from moderate households
and indicates that these effect aren't restricted to only those who are predisposed or its
liberal morality so that they are more broadly applicable
Summary
T able 2: M oral Outcomes across different Educational T rajectories
Moral Progressivism
Moral Relativism
Social Order
% of
Any shift toward
enrolled
Predicted Direction
Predicted
Direction
Predicted Direction
liberal moral
Field
Attainment
respondents value
of change value
of change value
of change profile?
No College
---0.02 (ref) ---0.03 (ref)
--0.12 (ref)
--HASS
Some college
9.6%
0.12***
liberal
-0.13***
unclear
-0.27***
liberal
yes
Bachelor’s
21.4%
0.13*
liberal
-0.19***
unclear
-0.34***
liberal
yes
Graduate
9.4%
0.23***
liberal
-0.24***
unclear
-0.42***
liberal
yes
STEM
Some college
10.9%
-0.01
---0.13***
unclear
-0.14
--no
Bachelor’s
11.6%
0
---0.20***
unclear
-0.21*
liberal
yes
Graduate
7.5%
0.1
---0.24***
unclear
-0.29**
liberal
yes
Business/
Some college
6.4%
0.08
---0.07
--0.08
--no
Agriculture
Bachelor’s
16.1%
0.08
---0.14**
unclear
-0.02
--no
Graduate
3.6%
0.19**
liberal
-0.18**
unclear
-0.09
--yes
Education
Some college
0%
0.05
---0.11
--0.25
--no
Bachelor’s
2.0%
0.06
---0.18
--0.16
--no
Graduate
3.5%
0.16
---0.22*
unclear
0.09
--no
N otes: Predicted values and significance tests compare difference from no college in SD units for each moral dimension The Direction of Change column
refers to whether the difference from No College is in the direction of a more stereotypically liberal/conservative moral profile. Percentages of enrolled
respondents were calculated at wave 4 using listwise deletion. The total percentage exceeds 100% because of double majors.
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a summary table, the results which makes it clear that most educational pathways are
expected to ship along one of these three moral attitudes and in most cases business
towards to stereotypically liberal moral profile that means towards moral
progressivism and concern for social order
but we also see that higher education consistently reduces moral relativism but here the
relationships liberal and conservative morality is less clear said slower more relative
business conservative trait but these kinds of recent accounts about more righteous
liberal righteousness suggests that moral certainty might be a feature of both left
leaning and right landing people
Summary of Results
• Against the self-selection argument and settled-disposition model, moral
attitudes remain malleable into young adulthood and higher education appears
to be an important institution facilitating change.
• Support for socialization hypothesis: moral change was strongest for HASS
students, and comparatively weaker and in some cases absent for other majors.
• However, decrease in moral relativism departs from how the cognitive and
socialization hypotheses are traditionally conceived
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The findings are significant for a number of reasons, so first while the recent clear
scholarship is questioned whether the collegiate experiences this deeply formative. Or
moral attitudes to question if I say it might be kind of self-selection that accounts
were in our analysis we find that moral moral attitudes remain malleable into young
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adulthood so they can change and the higher education appears to be an important
institution that facilitates this change
and I see that by examining the fact of religiosity and how it's sort of a comparable to
higher education for both these insitutions or are meaningfully affect moral attitudes
although in somewhat opposing ways
and so consistent with the socialization hypothesis moral change was strongest for
those humanines, arts and social sciences and comparatively weaker and in some cases
even absent or other majors
so this suggests that maybe the curricular content. particular norms of the specific deal
matter for moral change that's more embedded as it does seem somewhat particular to
certain fields more so than others but not this kind of general affect
where we do you find the general effect with like the moral relativism, it's not that it
doesn't it's not entirely consistent with the traditional socialization hypothesis which
sees moral relativism this kind of product of exposure to cultural diversity and it appears
to be at odds with the cognitive hypothesis as well predicts this planet greater
intellectual a flexibility has the results of solicitation
Realignment of Relativism
- Decreased relativism is noteworthy in that it contrasts with prior critiques of
higher education by conservative commentators, as well as earlier scholarly
accounts thar described relativistic tendencies among academics
- What changed?
o Social closure along ideological lines 28% of professors described
themselves as conservative in 1969, by 2013 this decreased to 12%.
Among college administrators liberals outnumber conservate by as much
as 12 to 1
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so this evidence of decreased relativism kind of stuck out in the analysis and for a
number of reasons why it contrasts the previous critiques of higher education by
religious and conservative commentators who attacked the universities as this site of
moral relativism but it also upends some of like the earlier scholarly accounts that
tended to describe this relativistic tendencies among academics
so in a pioneering study of the American from Astoria in 1958 these 2 sociologists
described social scientists as relativists and by virtue of their keen awareness historical
variation in morality and exposing to cultural diversity, but this inquire their own beliefs
with sense of contingency but they weren't absolutely correct and then that this kind of
underline their relativistic
and you know some more consistent with that we do find that humanities arts and
social science majors believe that morals ought to be changed and adjusted to social
change, so there is this kind of contextual expressive approach that is somewhat
relativistic it's understanding but the fact that we find that students differ from these
kinds of early relativist by just like greater willingness to claim that there are these
definite moral truths seems to depart from this for earlier potrals and appears to lend
some support for the recent frameset or relativism years past is transforming into a
form righteous progressive models)
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so the apparent discrepancies between our findings and list earlier effects also then
raises questions
So what might have changed why is it that before they were described as relativist and
now we find that they become more convinced from definite right
our study looks at like individual change so we look at how the visuals changed and
limits our ability to see what historically we have why it's this is like different historically,
it signal some sort of tracking but we can look at other trends and the research and
literature that could lead us to some speculations over what might have changed and
one of the things that that social scientists would lead you to believe and underlies
more definite absolutist attitudes and social quote it would find that over the past link
since late 1980s there is this kind of increasing social closure along political ideology
among university faculty and administrators which then might explain this apparent
rise of moral certitude, so scholars find that while 28% of professors describe
themselves as conservative in 1969 this is by 2013 this decreased that only 12% and this
kind of political imbalance is more pronounced among college administrators where one
or four that finds that liberals outnumber conservatives as much as 12 to one so there
there is this one from trends that might help explain this which is this increasing political
homogeneity which could create this kind of sense of moral consensus that leads shared
liberal beliefs unchallenged or might make him feel national true and sociological
research finds that you know when you have but you lack interpersonal and
engagement and you don't engage with those from the out group that could make
people less politically tolerant less likely to regard the opposing views as legitimate
and more likely to hold stronger more extreme attitudes, these are all traits that
coincide with this kind of stronger more righteous coinviction so these processes these
trends that like this is one way of possibly explained declining relativism process could
contribute to a sense of liberal moral certitude among students to the extent that
university messaging, course contempt type of faculty mentors that are available or
even interactions with faculty and staff communicate this kind of moral consensus that
everyone's on the same page
Realignment of Relativism
• Another possibility is the official culture hypothesis
• Moral self-assurance may reflect professionalization and expertise
• That moral certainty increasingly joins liberal sentiments may be explained
by growing alignment between liberal politics and white-collar
professional spaces.
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but there is limitations to the this as well so that speculated speculative theory as well
like this narrative might be great given that we found that moral certainty also increased
for students in fields that weren't associated with more liberal concerns
so in fields like education in fields like business, it wasn't necessarily tide to more liberal
concerns and we saw that it increases also for students from conservative families
so we see that's kind of moral certitude that increases with the higher education isn't
exclusive the kind of liberal moral sensibilities it seems to be more characteristic of the
highly educated as kind of a general class instead
so another possibility is one of the hypothesis that we discussed before but this might
be explained by this kind of socialization into official culture of dominant institutions
so according to some conflict theories like see C wright mills radical Collins ideas that
universities are the primary institution for mobility into the professional classes ,so
they have this latent function to socialize students into the dominant status culture by
teaching the proper etiquette, aesthetic tastes, and moral evaluations that are thought
to legitimize their advantage class position
so while these moral justifications might differ across fields with educated elites
variously casting themselves as maybe enlightened cosmopolitan or winners of some
sort Merrittocratic struggle themes that there's this strong moral self assurance that
appears to be like a common sentiment which follows from this kind of institutional
positions, for this kind of social mobility into the professional world
so as cultivation combines with a growing sense of expertise from formal training, from
educational attainment it might impart moral beliefs with this kind of stamp of
objectivity Grandview given your authority expertise as highly educated person
professionals according to this perspective might be defined by their authoritative
knowledge as the standards hierarchically above common opinions the reflect
something universal. so seeing this way moral righteousness might be a consequence
of rising social class rather than his kind of just like liberal socialization alone but while
this might help explain the rise of moral certainty among college educated it still
remains the case at higher education generally shifts the content of wolf shirts in the
liberal direction
so how do we make sense of it awhile like up this kind of increase more that there's this
increased moral certitude that in practice tends to align with more liberal world
insurance and evidence that that like social justice concerns are increasingly adopted or
even whole copted into official culture of institutions suggests that in practice
professional and more liberal leaning socialization are becoming more aligned
so it might be that as the as professional institutions and domains increasingly adopt or
co-ops the claims of social pro because there are arguments that say that it's not this
kind of genuine adaptation but rather it's more like a veneer but be that as it may it still
is increasingly being used in this professional spaces and so if to the extent that
institutions increasingly adopt these kinds of moral claims then we might find that this
moral certitude just typical of professional socialization will increasingly worse more
liberal
this graphic on this slide just shows that that point by looking at donations to who
donated trump versus who donated to biden iand you can see that like in the top it's
mostly the professional classes white collar jobs whereas in the bottom it's more of
these kind of blue collar construction workers truckers business owners blue collar jobs
whereas more high-end professional jobs tend to lean left band speaks to some of these
trends which might make sense
Social Implications
• Study speaks to the moral dimensions of political conflict
• Growing ‘diploma divide’ in electoral politics overlapping with moral differences
• Moral conflict of this sort may explain declining trust in media and expertise
Another key implication highlighted by Broćić and Miles (2021) is that deliberative democracy
may suffer whether educational attainment is coupled by a growing sense that opposing
viewpoints are harmful to interact with.
- go ahead and well how break him as well is everyone staring the end anyways without
special in the second half but what are the social implications why does why does this
matter like who cares sensually recent events suggest that our educations role in
liberalizing these kinds of moral turns having this kind of moral change that we find can
have important consequences for social con
- the scholars have observed is throwing salience of the diploma divide all tells where
educational attainment is becoming one of the strongest predictors of how you vote
specially with strong predictor for how you vote for trump the strong predictor of Brexit
but you find it also in France that that voting tends to be stratified by higher education
but it tends to for these populist events I too like the boat have to split along the
diploma divide
- so our study sort of speaks to the moral dimension of this divide so when conflict like
populous conflict pits this kind of more nationalism against cosmopolitanism and vulgar
populism against this more technocratic expertise but an educational system that
promotes this kind of moral self-assurance and commitment to liberal sensibilities will
likely stratify voters according to educational attainment make them side more against
popular
- And moral stratification of this sort could host to some risks to civil society something
I'm sure many of you have observed with like the society response to the pandemic but
if those on the political right hunter regard the primary care credentialing institution as
hostile to their interests and partisan segregation could further escalate with like I
deterrent serve it if ruling but this in turn could deepen distrust towards government
distrust towards media and others institutions where you know the highly educated
work and we already see trends along these lines among non-college educated and I
think like some of the backlash resistance to vaccinations and some of the measures to
around the covid could be partly understood by this kind of like distrust of that has
this moral undertone where they feel like there is that they're not reflected in the
same way
- then finally deliberative democracy could also suffer to the extent that if educational
type in attainment is companied by this rising conviction that opposing views might be
dangerous to engage or tolerate so with this kind of moral certainty and that could
also be a threat to deliberative democracy
Limitations
• Link between moral attitudes and political behaviour is unclear
• More data could help interpret the decline in moral relativism
• students become more liberal in their moral sensibilities, but decrease in
moral relativism (i.e. more likely to believe in definite right and wrong) –
what do we make of this increase in ‘moral certainty’, ‘absolutism’,
‘righteousness’?
• Good evidence against earlier culture war critiques of universities as
bastions of moral relativism
• Suggestive support for accounts of an increasingly puritanical brand of
progressivism, but unclear what it is capturing
• Future work also needed to understand processes whereby educational
attainment influences moral attitudes
• What aspects of the collegiate experience account for moral change?
you know it's important to acknowledge limitations in this study those are just
implications that you could draw out how to connect to wider themes it's important not
to overstate political consequences for oil change so it's clear that that partisans differ
in their moral attitudes so entirely clear whether higher education's effect on more
laugh morality is what leads to these differences and political behavior so like a student
might have my very well emerge with like less regard for traditional like conservative
morality but they might still vote like Republic day before economic or foreign policy or
other reasons for other concerns that aren't related formality
someone morality necessarily the primary predictor of political behavior but I think this
opens up questions on how moral economic political interests intersect among the
highly educated what effects they have together on political behavior
bbut aside from that more work is also needed to clarify this interpretation of this
decline in moral relativistic what does that mean bullet plans like respondents are taking
off that they believe there's definite right now and that can be interpreted in many ways
so'cause there do we when we make of this kind of moral certainty or is it absolute visit
righteousness so it seems like it's good evidence against earlier conservative critiques
that universities are these bastions of moral relativism seems like no doubt those
outside of college which tend to believe that world or relative to a higher degree and my
kind of correspond somewhat in some ways to like some contemporary critiques about
morning puritanical progressivism focus or that whatever but it's not entirely clear it's
not what it's capturing either so you know this is the like more research needs to be
done to see what they actually represents but other also like future research is needed
to understand the processes whereby higher education influences moral attitudes so
you know the these effects vary across fields of study might suggest that curricular
content matters but it's not entirely clear what aspects of the collegiate experience or
relevant for world change so some recent work for instance highlights the role of non
curricular aspects like peer groups so it's like cool your friends or if we need on
university that is actually much more influential into sites about this agent of
socialization then just like what you read in class it also might be like social media might
be like more decisive eyes like a source of political socialization than higher education
but they might interact higher education support overall this is kind of a stop that that I
wanted to pursue a little further like future research So what are these processes that
actually underline how moral changes affected redirected through higher education but
also how do we make sense of this the portrait is this sort of indicative of some sort of
absolutism is it not so maybe just this kind of moral universalism but any case those are
the questions that I have going forward and some of the questions that discussion OK
yeah so that's I have been to both issue with 1212