Does University Education Reduce Anti-Immigrant Sentiment?

Although comparative survey studies (Gonzales-Barrera & Connor 2019; Coenders& Scheepers 2003) provide strong evidence that new generations across the Anglosphere share growing tolerance of diversity, the causes of this cultural change are not well understood. Moreover, in several countries (e.g., Hungary, Poland, Israel), younger generations are not more tolerant of immigrants than older ones (Pew 2018). Therefore, this apparent cultural change seems neither universal nor inevitable. One line of research argues university education leads to greater cognitive sophistication (and thus less stereotyping), more contact with minorities (and thus opportunity to observe that prejudice is ill-founded), and higher occupational status(and thus less competition with immigrants for jobs and social services) (Meeusenet al. 2013). Increased participation in university education is claimed to provide ‘immunity’ to populist and extremist ideas (Norris & Inglehart 2019). However, recent European studies (Lancee & Sarrasin 2015; Weber 2020; Kunst 2020) cast doubt on this. Large longitudinal studies with samples of youth in Switzerland, Germany, and the Netherlands found university education has a very small overall effect on students' tolerance for diversity; political outlooks are actually set much earlier, with family a key driver (Crocetti et al. 2021). In Australia, we know that a significant minority of youth are showing signs of political radicalization (Nilan 2021), but we do not know whether these European findings are applicable. To answer this question, we analyze Social Futures dataset (2006-2019), to understand the longitudinal effects of structural, contextual, and ideological factors on young Queenslanders' tolerance of diversity. Our findings indicate that while university education does seem to make a difference, the effects vary significantly depending on the students' academic field of study and a form of anti-immigrant sentiment in question. We also find some support for the argument that the university education might reduce the risk of job competition between Australian-born and immigrant youth, thereby reducing their anti-immigrant sentiment.