Inclusion without Solidarity: Education, Economic Security, and Attitudes toward Redistribution
| Date | 01 February 2022 |
| Published date | 01 February 2022 |
| Author | Margarita Gelepithis,Marco Giani |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032321720933082 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0032321720933082
Political Studies
2022, Vol. 70(1) 45 –61
© The Author(s) 2020
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DOI: 10.1177/0032321720933082
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Inclusion without Solidarity:
Education, Economic Security,
and Attitudes toward
Redistribution
Margarita Gelepithis1 and Marco Giani2
Abstract
Highly educated individuals tend to be less supportive of redistribution by most accounts because
they have more to lose and less to gain from it. In this article, we use European Social Survey data
to develop the argument that university education reduces support for redistribution in large part
independently of the improved material circumstances with which it is associated. While university
encourages a range of progressive ideas related to cultural inclusivity, it simultaneously encourages
conservative redistribution preferences that are reinforced—but only partly explained—by the
economic security it tends to provide. In short, European universities foster norms of cultural
inclusion, while simultaneously eroding norms of economic solidarity.
Keywords
ideas, interests, education, university, redistribution, attitude
Accepted: 15 May 2020
It is a notable consequence of the success of interest-based accounts of distributional poli-
tics that the link between education and redistribution has received rather little theoretical
attention. In light of a long-standing scholarly consensus that support for redistribution is
structured by economic self-interest (see Esping-Andersen, 1990; Korpi, 1983; Lipset,
1959; Meltzer and Richard, 1981; Moene and Wallerstein, 2001 Iversen and Soskice,
2001 among many others), education is assumed to shape redistribution preferences pri-
marily through the effect it has on individual economic security. By increasing individual
economic security, education encourages a self-interested reduction in support for redis-
tribution, and more conservative ideological positioning on the left–right scale.
1The University of Warwick, Warwick, UK
2King’s College London, London, UK
Corresponding author:
Marco Giani, King’s College London, London WC2R 2LS, UK.
Email: marco.giani@kcl.ac.uk
933082PSX0010.1177/0032321720933082Political StudiesGelepithis and Giani
research-article2020
Article
46 Political Studies 70(1)
Of course, education does more than just structure economic interests. It also directly
shapes ideas, both in a top-down way, as a result of what is taught, and because education
constitutes a locus of socialization. Yet to the extent that education shapes redistribution
preferences independently of the material conditions with which it is associated, it is
unclear whether it should reinforce or temper anti-redistributive preferences.
On one hand, education fosters non-economic ideas that are closely, causally linked
with support for redistribution. Through top-down processes that increase cognitive
sophistication, and through bottom-up exposure to difference, education is expected to
foster norms of inclusion toward other races, cultures, and ways of life, and relatedly,
social and institutional trust. Trust and inclusion are closely associated with support for
redistribution, tempering the solidarity-eroding effect of individual economic security.
On the other hand, a more critical tradition in political sociology views education as a
conservative rather than a progressive ideational force. It draws attention to the status
quo–preserving ideas imparted top-down by elite educators. And instead of emphasizing
how bottom-up processes of educational socialization increase exposure to difference, it
highlights how concentrated privilege reinforces established power relations (Bourdieu
and Passeron, 1977).
In this article, we use data from eight rounds of the European Social Survey (ESS
Rounds 1–8, 2016) to empirically disentangle the interest-based from the ideational
effects of education on redistribution preferences. We present the results of an ordinary
least squares (OLS) analysis in which we draw on interest-based theories of redistribution
preferences to isolate the effect that education exerts on support for redistribution through
improved individual economic circumstances. We interpret our results in light of associa-
tions between education and a range of attitudes closely linked to redistribution prefer-
ences, as well as in light of a comparison between vocational and university education. A
quasi-experimental analysis based on non-parametric matching reinforces our argument.
We find that net of individual economic circumstances, education is associated with
less support for redistribution, and it is university education in particular that produces
this outcome. University education is associated with more conservative redistribution
preferences despite fostering sociopolitical trust and inclusive ideas closely linked with
support for redistribution.
Theoretically, the implications of our analysis are twofold. First, our argument
implies that theories of redistribution should take ideas more seriously than they cur-
rently do. Influential accounts of welfare preferences have centered on the role of eco-
nomic self-interest and have not tried to separate the effect of education from the effect
of economic security on support for redistribution. Empirical work has followed suit,
with a tendency to include education only as a control for economic security. We show
that the role of education in providing economic security is only half the story when
explaining support for redistribution. Of equal importance is education’ s role in shap-
ing ideas rather than interests through a variety of top-down and bottom-up educational
processes.
Second, our analysis suggests a need to qualify the prominent view that education is
a coherent force for progressive social change. We show that while it is indeed the case
that university encourages a range of progressive ideas related to cultural inclusivity, it
simultaneously encourages conservative redistribution preferences that are rein-
forced—but only partly explained—by the economic security it tends to provide. In
short, we suggest that university education fosters norms of inclusion, while eroding
norms of solidarity.
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