A Study of Attitude Change in College Classes

I Think My Professor is a Democrat: Considering Whether Students Recognize and React to Faculty Politics

“…Whaples (1995) finds that students who complete an introductory economics course are more likely to regard the price-setting mechanisms of a free market as fair. Wylie and Parcell (1982) find that students are significantly more liberal after completing an introductory sociology course. The authors argue that this attitude change is desirable in sociology, as students are required to adopt a “universalistic perspective,” which assumes social problems are the result of unjust, inequitable social arrangements rather than individual choice.…”

Academic Freedom in Higher Education Within a Conservative Sociopolitical Culture

“…Although surprisingly small, the research base since the 1970 Chickering study generally confirms that college has a liberalizing effect on students' political views (Dey, 1988;Lottes & Kuriloff, 1994;Wylie & Parcell, 1981). However, Rich (1977) found this movement toward liberalism to be no greater for college students than for a noncollege comparison group.…”

“…Students' area of study also may predict amount of change toward liberalism. For example, Wylie and Parcell (1981) reported that students in sociology courses showed greater pre-to post-course change toward liberalism than did students in psychology courses. Dey (1988) concluded that the liberalizing effect of college is neither large nor universal and may be due more to socialization among students having different values than to academic stimulation in college courses.…”

“…Previously cited research (Wylie & Parcell, 1981) has suggested that college students' area of study is somewhat related to their political preferences. This finding was updated in the Niemi and Hanmer (2004) report.…”

Relevance or Reinforcement: Teaching about the Anti-Feminist Movement

“…It is both a pleasure and a frustration for the political science profession that, unlike a field such as chemistry, students come to us with a myriad of attitudes and misperceptions but little concrete knowledge of politics. Although there is some evidence that attitudes can be changed during the course of one semester (Brush, Gold, and White 1978;Baker and Snodgrass 1979;Wylie and Parcell 1982), the preponderance of evidence seems to indicate that the curriculum is most effective in transmitting knowledge but not in influencing attitudes (Ehman 1980). It may be, however, that this increased knowledge stemming from exposure to new ideas may in turn result in attitudinal change (Milburn 1979).…”