Educational Identity and the Education Effect Matt Easterbrook Toon Kuppens Tony Manstead

Educational Identity Education more important for job status, salary, and marriage partners People are aware of their own and others’ level of education Education is increasingly important for understanding people

Recent evidence Income Financial assets Job type Employment permanence Supervisor status Economics training Higher education Political orientation Pro-redistribution Volunteering Independence values Measures of interpersonal trust Attitudes toward benefit fraud Attitudes towards adultery Sample of 9000 Dutch respondents Education was consistently the strongest predictor of these outcomes The most potent indicator of social status – people will be aware of their and others’ level of education Trautmann, van de Kuilen, & Zeckhauser (2013), Perspectives on Psychological Science

Educational Identity Education is important to people’s identities Interested in education as a social, rather than personal, identity Social identities associated with diverse outcomes and biases

People often perceive themselves and others not as individuals, but as members of particular social categories (e.g. woman, Briton, statistician) People are often perceived as typical members of the social categories to which they belong (stereotypes), rather than unique individuals This simplifies our social world and reduces the cognitive resources needed in our densely populated social world, but is associated with numerous biases and outcomes Social Identities

Greater feelings of similarity and closeness to members of own categories More differentiated from members of other categorises Categories are the basis for social norms and tend to homogenize Arguments made by European researchers that education is becoming a basis for a social identity Stubager (2009); Bovens & Wille (2010, 2010) Education as a Social Identity

Prerequisites for Social Identities The category must be easily accessible to people’s minds – Societal relevance of education: Institutional importance of education and educational homogamy – Perceiver readiness The use of particular categories must fit with reality and make sense – Do different categories act in different ways? Can the categorisation help explain reality? – Homogenization of attitudes, opinions, behaviours, and values by educational group – Health and eating behaviours, political activity – Fit Self Categorization Theory – Turner, Hoggs, Oakes, Reicher, Wetherell (1987)

Evidence from Denmark Asked 1,148: “People regularly say that there are two groups of people in Danish society: those with high education and those with low education. Would you say that you… – Feel highly attached to people with high education – Feel somewhat attached to people with high education – Don’t feel attached to any of the groups – Feel somewhat attached to people with low education – Feel highly attached to people with low education – Don’t know 55% of respondents reported they were highly or somewhat attached to people with their level of education Stubager (2009)

UK Evidence What is the evidence that education is important for identity in the UK? Citizenship Survey; and : – How important is your level of education to your sense of who you are? 1=Not at all … 4=Very Understanding Society; Wave B : – We’d like to know how important various things are to your sense of who you are. Please think about each of the following and tick the box that indicates whether you think it is very important, fairly important, not very important or not at all important to your sense of who you are. Please tick one answer on each line. Your level of education? 1-4.

Identification with Education

Summary People feel attached to anonymous others based on nothing but their education level People identify with their educational group

Social Identities and Well-Being Identifying with a social category or group has consistently been shown to benefit health and well-being. – Jetten et al. (2011) – The Social Cure; Jones & Jetten (2010) Does this apply to a) education, and b) societal well-being? IdentificationWell-being Perceiver readiness Fit

Strength of Identification Effect

Summary Education is important to people’s identities It forms the basis of a social identity The extent people identify with their level of education is positively related to their personal and societal well-being – Identification = how important education is to their identity Is this the same for all educational groups?

Low education People are motivated to perceive their identities as positively distinct, which provides feelings of self-esteem Qualifications are perceived as achieved via personal abilities, rather than ascribed by social class – education as a meritocracy Low status groups are not positively distinctive and hence do not provide self- esteem, thus members may attempt to leave their group if possible – i.e. social mobility This is difficult for education, so the low educated may simply reject education as part of their identities to protect their self-esteem

Percentage who feel attached to educational groups Evidence from Denmark; Stubager, 2009 What about UK evidence?

Average identification

Citizenship Survey Identification on Education

Understanding Society Identification on Education

Summary The lower educated identify less with their level of education But education is still a reasonably important part of their identity Does identification have the same positive benefits for all educational groups?

Identification by qualification The lower educated suffer from stigma, lower well-being, and less political empowerment. Evidence that identification can counteract the negative effects of stigma for rejected groups Does identifying with your education group provide especially strong benefits for those with lower education, who have the lowest well-being? Recognised Low Status and Stigma Group identification Well-being Group identification +

Strength of the Identification Effect Citizenship Survey

Strength of the Identification Effect Understanding Society

Summary Those with low levels of education identify less their educational group But the personal well-being of the low educated tends to benefit more from identification than those with high education

Strength of Identification Effect Political Items

Strength of Identification Effect Trust items

Strength of Identification Effect Belonging Items

Summary Slight tendency for those with lower levels of education to hold attitudes and opinions that are more beneficial to society when they identify with their educational group than the high educated

Conclusions Education is an important part of people’s identities Education is a more important part of people’s identity if they have higher levels of education Identifying with your educational group is associated with more positive outcomes Some evidence that this is more pronounced for those with lower education Suggests we should encourage positive social identities around education