Education and Intergroup Attitudes: Moral Enlightenment, Superficial Democratic Commitment, or Ideological Refinement?

It has been commonly assumed that an advanced formal education bestows a more enlightened perspective that is less vulnerable to the narrow appeals of intergroup negativism. Other investigators have argued that education increases commitment to democratic norms, but only at a superficial level. We review the arguments from that debate and then subject them to empirical test with national survey data on the intergroup beliefs, feelings, predispositions for personal contact, and policy orientations of men toward women, of whites toward blacks, and of the nonpoor toward the poor. The results of that comprehensive analysis fail to support the view either that education produces liberation from intergroup negativism or that it produces a superficial democratic commitment. With that ascertained, we depart from the confines of past debate and propose a fresh approach that rests on different assumptions about the nature of both intergroup attitudes and educational institutions. We argue that dominant social groups routinely develop ideologies that legitimize and justify the status quo, and the well-educated members of these dominant groups are the most sophisticated practitioners of their group's ideology. We interpret our data from this perspective and suggest that the well educated are but one step ahead of their peers in developing a defense of their interests that rests on qualification, individualism, obfuscation, and symbolic concessions.