Education and Social Attitudes Based On General Social Surveys

Since people's social attitudes are both representative and facilitator of socio-cultural changes on a more general scale, any factor that affects them is significant and can be studied. Accordingly, the study on the effect of education on people's social attitudes has become the main focus point of the present paper. To analyze this issue, Inglehart's theory of human development and its role in attitudinal and value changes have been applied. Research information has been gathered through secondary analysis of various national survey data. Findings indicate that in parallel with increasing education, orientations of human actors in relation to family bounds, sense of belonging to the national community, media consumption pattern, political awareness, religious style, advocacy of women's rights and the environment and tendency to social tolerance becomes different. Research findings indicate the fact that increasing education can be a source of attitudinal and value changes. Finally, the socio-cultural implications of gradual changes in the attitudes and values of human actors that will occur in parallel with the increase in education are discussed.