How Does Education Affect Political Trust?: An Analysis of Moderating Factors

Abstract

This article aims to understand the correlates of political trust by delving into the multiple interactive effects of education in democratic states throughout the world. It asks whether education raises political trust by increasing the stakes of the citizens in the system and whether education diminishes trust as a result of being abler to evaluate the existence of corruption in a given country. It also taps into how post-materialism as an individual-level factor affects this equation by activating critical judgments toward political institutions. The findings show that, indeed, the effect of education on political trust is very contextdependent. Political trust and education are positively correlated in more meritocratic countries and negatively correlated in the more corrupt ones. Post-material values, combined with educational attainment, tend to lower political trust to a certain extent yet this effect is surpassed by the presence or absence of meritocracy or political corruption. We also find that the effect of education on political trust becomes more pronounced as the level of education increases, with university graduates being the most susceptible to the effects of meritocracy and corruption on their trust levels.

To trust or not to trust: Examining trust and perceptions of police in the United States

“…The final predictor, education, indicates individuals with lower levels of education have higher levels of political trust. This finding is supported by existing research (Dalton, 2004;Huntington, 1981;Stokes, 1962;Ugur-Cinar et al, 2020). The only significant predictor of media trust is age.…”

The Political Significance of Overeducation: Status Inconsistency, Attitudes towards the Political System and Political Participation in a High-Overeducation Context

“…Finally, the positive, age-invariant effect of (aggregate) overeducation on civic participation corroborated hypothesis H6b on associationism, going against hypothesis H6a.These findings fit rather well with the predictions stemming from status inconsistency theory and with the expectation that the effects of overeducation are conditional on the degree of structural crystallization of the status dimensions. They also make an addition to our knowledge of the relationship between, on the one hand, occupational and educational inequalities and, on the other hand, political attitudes and political participation (e.g., Gallego 2007;Caínzos and Voces 2010;Caínzos 2010;Martini and Quaranta 2020;Madden 2020;Ugur-Cinar et al 2020;Giugni and Grasso 2021).…”

Quality of Democracy Makes a Difference, but Not for Everyone: How Political Interest, Education, and Conceptions of Democracy Condition the Relationship Between Democratic Quality and Political Trust

“…More generally, Monsiváis-Carrillo and Cantú Ramos' ( 2020) results for 18 Latin American democracies suggest that democratic quality increases satisfaction with democracy among highly educated citizens, whereas it has little to no effect among the less educated. Providing further evidence for an interaction between democratic quality and education, Ugur-Cinar et al (2020) show that education and political trust are positively correlated in countries with low levels of corruption but that in highly corrupt countries, the more highly educated express less trust in political institutions than the less educated. Similarly, Agerberg (2019) finds education to have a weaker positive effect on what he calls "institutional attitudes" in democracies with high levels of corruption, indicating that corruption has a stronger negative effect on citizens' attitudes among the higher educated.…”