Field of Education and Political Behavior: Predicting GAL/TAN Voting

Abstract

Education is perhaps the most generally used independent variable in the fields of public opinion and vote choice. Yet the extent to which a person is educated is just one way in which education may affect political beliefs and behavior. In this article, we suggest that the substantive field of education has an independent and important role to play over and above level. Using cross-national evidence for 15 European countries we find that a person’s field of education is robustly significant and substantively strong in predicting voting for GAL and TAN parties that have transformed European party systems. Analysis of panel data suggests that the effect of educational field results from self-selection, a direct effect during education, and a post-education effect in occupation.