Sources of politico-economic attitudes: students’ introspections

Our aim is to shed more light on university students’ sources of attitudes towards the market economy, social inequality, and the responsibilities of the state. Analyzing survey data of almost 500 students at a German university, we identify those sources the subjects report to be important in the process of forming their politico-economic attitudes. We explore the differences between our sample of local students and the German General Social Survey, as well as the characteristics of subjects expressing no opinion. We also examine whether the sources which were reported to be important significantly contribute to the prediction of conservative political attitudes, concentrating specifically on the attitude effects of economic education.