ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on two key political orientations that have been affected by university education in studies elsewhere: political tolerance and foreign policy attitudes. It summarizes the literature on higher education as a factor in political socialization, focusing on general impact of university education on political attitudes and the mechanisms hypothesized to produce these effects. The chapter concentrates on Israel, describing the religion of security and how it is inculcated and reinforced through socialization in the military. It describes the research design, data collection, and major variables. Israel is a "difficult" case in which to sustain the hypothesis linking higher education and political attitude change. A nation born in war, constantly engaged in military action, and routinely exposed to terrorist attacks, its politics has long been preoccupied by questions of national security. Finally—and this is entirely subjective—anybody who has spent time in Israel will attest that Israelis are highly unlikely to disguise their views in conversation solely to avoid discomfiture.
