Tertiary educational attainment consistently predicts improvements in political engagement, yet only recently have we begun disentangling field of study differences in attainment effects. It's become clear that we do not fully understand whether university attendance or attainment drives this effect, or whether this is driven by particular fields of study. However, such heterogeneity matters greatly for understanding the political consequences of educational stratification and sorting. We address this gap by decomposing tertiary education effects by field of study, contrasting Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) against STEM fields in Germany and the UK.
Our research design extends the Brand and Xie (2010) heterogeneous treatment effects framework to compare tracked (Germany) versus comprehensive (UK) educational systems. We analyze political interest and left-right orientation using a harmonised panel dataset from Germany and the UK (N = 26,335), employing propensity score methods with rich pre-treatment covariates, including social origins, parental occupation, secondary school subject grades, and youth political interest.
The results reveal that the field of study matters more than tertiary attainment for political engagement. Both political outcomes demonstrate negative selection patterns; students unlikely to enroll in HSS fields change the most (more interested and more left-wing) if they enroll. This strongly suggests evidence of socialization. STEM fields show no such compensatory effects.
Between the two countries, we find similar negative selection patterns for tertiary attainment and equalizing effects across parental education backgrounds. Together, these findings showcase the value of examining field of study differences and support socialization interpretations with the caveat that this is only the case for those least likely to attain a liberal arts qualification in tertiary education. Field of study differences within tertiary education emerge as a crucial and understudied aspect of educational causes of political change.