Does private schooling make you right-wing? An investigation using the 1970 British Cohort Study

This paper addresses the question of whether attending a private school (both at primary and secondary stages) affects voting behaviour and political attitudes in adulthood. The analysis is based upon the British Cohort Study, a nationally representative cohort of children born in one week in April 1970 at age 42 years. A path analysis was adopted to test the impact of attending a private school on the tendency to vote Conservative in four consecutive General Elections, and on the expression of left-right attitudes in mid-life for a sample of 6917 study members. A constellation of antecedents were included in the modelling covering social origins at birth, cultural and material capital and academic achievement prior and post-secondary school entry together with an individual’s early social class destination. Our findings suggest that once these aspects of the life course are included in the model that there is evidence for a direct relationship between attending private school and the expression of right wing attitudes for both men and women