Simon discuss their research on Euroscepticism and how studying at university impacts this in the UK.
The importance of education in shaping British public opinion came to the forefront of debate in the wake of the 2016 EU referendum, when it became evident that while approximately 70% of those with university degrees had voted to Remain, just over 30% of those with at most secondary school qualifications had done the same. Yet this educational divide over Euroscepticism is not new. Data from the British Social Attitudes survey shows that graduates have been considerably japan rcs data more favourable towards European integration than their non-graduate counterparts since the early 1990s, though the ‘educational gap’ in these attitudes has widened over time (see Figure 1).
Figure 1 – The (widening) Euroscepticism gap between graduates and non-graduates
A line plot graph showing the percentage of graduates and non-graduates who want to leave the EU from the early 1990s through to the present.
With increasing attention being paid to the fact that university graduates tend to be more pro-Europe than non-graduates in recent years, it is unsurprising that people have begun to speculate about whether there may be something about the experience of studying at university that causes attitudinal change. Indeed, there are good reasons to think that this might be the case.