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Old 07-15-2020, 12:34 PM   #1730
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Originally Posted by CliffFletcher View Post
Okay, your turn. Empirically back up your assertion that educated people have more diversity of thought and opinion.
Well, none of your assertions were really backed up by your data, which suggested different conclusions all together. It is true educated people are more consistently liberal, as being exposed to different viewpoints makes you more tolerant of other people. A homophobe who enters college, for example, may interact with a gay person for the first time, and instead of being "the other" it humanises them, and softens their view.

According to this study, college generally pulls people from the fringes, softening the views of people who share heavily biased views of liberals OR conservatives.

Quote:
The result? In our nationally representative sample of over 7,000 undergraduates at more than 120 colleges who answered both the first-year and sophomore questionnaire, students did demonstrate an increase in appreciative attitudes toward liberals after a year of schooling.

Among all students, 48 percent viewed liberals more favorably in their second year of college than when they arrived on campus. However, among the same students, 50 percent also viewed conservatives more favorably. In other words, college attendance is associated, on average, with gains in appreciating political viewpoints across the spectrum, not just favoring liberals.

...

Moreover, the data show us that the most growth in appreciation happened among people who were initially least appreciative of either liberals or conservatives. In simple terms, first-year students who begin college really disliking liberals or conservatives have their attitudes soften in college.

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Also, students trend toward appreciating liberal ideologies – both when they first come to college and after their first year. So, while students still favor liberal ideologies over conservative ones, this gap does not widen over the first year.

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After a year of college, in other words, it might be more challenging for students to brand all liberals or conservatives as wrongheaded when they are studying, eating and learning alongside them. These experiences might even help students appreciate others as people with diverse histories and shared interests in working toward common goals.
Educated people, by nature, have more experience with people outside their own viewpoints and appreciate more diversity in opinion as they go through college. If there is a bubble-effect happening (which we've discussed previously) college and university would simply be another reflection of that wider issue, but not a cause, as you've incorrectly suggested.

Young people and educated people will always lean more liberal as a whole, because those are the times and the spaces where you are more likely to have access to a broader range of ideas and people.
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