Curricular Content and Ideological Change: Field-Specific Evidence from German Universities

• In Event: Political Sociology Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Politics of Education (Table 4)

Abstract

In the debate around the widening socio-cultural divide between liberal-progressive and conservative-traditionalist segments of society, concerns about universities’ role in shaping students’ political orientations have regained momentum. In response, associated research increasingly examines differences between fields of study. It shows that the political consequences of university education vary substantially across academic disciplines. Despite growing evidence of field-specific patterns, we still know little about why these differences emerge. One prominent explanation emphasizes curricular content, including theories, normative perspectives, and skills students learn while studying. It is argued that human-centered programs shape political views differently than programs focusing on technical or economic subjects. Yet most existing studies rely on relatively coarse field classifications. Hence, we lack a systematic understanding of whether and how educational content structures variation in political socialization. This study addresses this gap by examining the political effect of enrollment in 68 academic disciplines. Gaining a clearer understanding of how political socialization unfolds in higher education is not only of scientific significance but particularly urgent as narratives of universities “indoctrinating” students are prominent in the public discourse and actively mobilized by political actors. The analysis relies on 13 waves of the German Student Survey collected between 1983 and 2016. Germany provides a particularly suitable setting for this study as boundaries between programs are relatively rigid and standardization of programs across universities is high. We obtain information on the content of each field using the Course-Skill Atlas, a novel and comprehensive dataset of skills taught in U.S. higher education. The adaptation to the German context is still a work in progress. A preliminary analysis of field-specific ideological shifts suggests that, over four years of studying, both support for green/left ideology and rejection of conservative/nationalist views grow particularly in human-centered programs such as language and health studies. However, contrary to current theory, more technical fields such as spatial planning and business informatics are also among those with the largest pro-green or anti-conservative shifts. These mixed patterns underscore the importance of systematically examining the role of curricular content in shaping political orientations during university studies.

Author

• Viktor Decker, University of Bonn