liberal v. conservative professors

Submitted by Linda McClain, PhD. (United States), Apr 28, 2005 at 18:34

When I taught American Government in the past, we did a section on political socialization. The general tendency towards a more liberal viewpoint among academics was greater the higher an individual went in his/her education, reflecting the nature of an academic life to question things instead of accepting conventional wisdom. It was also more likely in those who studied social studies and humanities, areas of study in which answers are less clear cut than in, say, hard sciences or math. Interestingly, females tended to be more liberal minded than males. On the other side, people from the suburbs and people with less education tend to be more conservative, and so on. It has a lot to do with such demographics.

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