Education and Racism

This study gives an inventory of factors contributing to prejudice in seven countries and indicates the role of formal education in this process on the basis of national surveys. It appears that education is a crucial factor in all the countries surveyed and contributes to more tolerant views on ethnic differences in a number of Western European countries, Poland and the USA. The positive effects of education however, do not always counter the negative effects of personality characteristics and conservative values, while the negative effects of less education may be reinforced by perceived economical competition of ethnic minorities.