THE IMPACT OF COLLEGE EXPERIENCE ON POLITICAL AND SOCIAL-ATTITUDES

In the last two decades a considerable volume of research has focused on how the college experience affects students. The purpose of the res earch reported here was to investigate to what extent students (predom inantly Caucasian) at a highly selective university on the East coast changed their political and social attitudes during college. In partic ular, the influences of religious background, gender, membership in a fraternity or sorority, and time in college on attitudes were examined . Results indicated that students as seniors scored higher on measures of liberalism, social conscience, homosexuality tolerance and feminis t attitudes and lower on male-dominant attitudes than they did as firs t year students. Given the lack of previous studies of change in attit udes toward homosexuality in college and the current political debate about issues relating to sexual orientation, an important finding was the substantial increase in tolerance of homosexuality by all subgroup s. Results are discussed with respect to the special characteristics a nd potential influence of Ivy League students.