ERIC Number: EJ1377681
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2023-Jun
Pages: 26
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0018-1560
EISSN: EISSN-1573-174X
Available Date: N/A
Higher Education and the Importance of Values: Evidence from the World Values Survey
Higher Education: The International Journal of Higher Education Research, v85 n6 p1401-1426 Jun 2023
The collection of data on values through instruments such as the World Values Survey has focused attention on two opposing but inter-related trends, namely the combination of substantial cultural change in many countries and the persistence of distinctive traditional values. This reflects the interplay between social changes associated with modernisation and globalisation--including increased global trade and the rise of global popular culture--with traditional values country-specific systems. In this paper, we introduce a focus on another potentially important source of change, that of widening higher education participation and attainment, and the extent to which self-reported values differ between university graduates and non-graduates. We investigated this question using data from the most recent collection of the World Values Survey (2017-2020) for six core values--family, friends, leisure, work, politics, and religion--and tested for the influence of higher education attainment on the perceived "importance" of each value and the extent to which this influence differs across values and in gender, generation and country grouping sub-samples. We find evidence for consistent effects in most contexts, with no statistical differences between graduates on non-graduates in relation to the propensity to view family and work as important, statistically significant positive effects on the propensity of graduates to view friends, leisure, and politics as important, and a significant negative effect in relation to religion.
Descriptors: Higher Education, Values, Surveys, Social Change, Traditionalism, Global Approach, Popular Culture, College Students, College Graduates, Educational Attainment, World Views, Friendship, Family Relationship, Employment, Leisure Time, Political Attitudes, Religion, Student Attitudes
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: N/A