Subjects Studied and Students' Political Ideology

The aim of this analysis is to account for the differences in and changes of political attitudes among university students of different subjects. Employing theories of political economy and science studies an ordered probit analysis is performed on data provided by the student survey of the Konstanz Reseach Group on Higher Education. The findings suggest that the differences in political attitudes among different groups of students primarily stem from self-selection. However, part of the difference is found to be caused by the subjects themselves, as the support of certain political positions changes systematically in the course of studies. While economics is found to increase students’ sympathy for liberal positions, the results indicate that the humanities strengthen students’ support of social democratic positions