How Education Shapes Political Values: Evidence from Curriculum in Mexico

• In Event: The Political Economy of Education in the Developing World

Abstract

There has been renewed global interest in the role that schools can play to strengthen democracy, peace, and national cohesion. However, recent empirical studies find mixed evidence on the effect of additional years of schooling on democratic attitudes and political participation. It is unclear what explains these mixed findings. We hypothesize that individual political attitudes and behaviors are shaped, among other things, by the content of education. To test this hypothesis, we conduct a study of the political consequences of national primary school curriculum reforms in Mexico from 1960 to the present. Our research design combines automated text analysis of the entire corpus of textbooks used in Mexican primary schools from 1960 to the present, qualitative analysis of these textbooks, and difference-in-differences estimates of the impact of textbook reforms on long-run political attitudes and behaviors. This study will help refine our understanding of the mechanisms and conditions under which education shapes civic and political attitudes and behaviors in pro-democratic ways.

Authors

• Francisco Garfias, University of California, San Diego

• Agustina S Paglayan, UCSD