Metta Spencer

Professional, Scientific, and Intellectual Students in India

By Metta Spencer. In Comparative Education Review, Vol.10, No.2 (June 1966)

Studies of the political orientations of students in the universities of several different countries have shown a rather consistent pattern of political allegiance, participation and information when one compares students in different majors or faculties. In general the leftist students (who are often more politically active and better informed than are the conservative students) are found in the humanities and social sciences.

The evidence has been summarized by Seymour Martin Lipset, who comments on the Indian universities that commerce is the major studied by the most conservative partisans, while students of “sociology, economics and anthropology” incline more toward the left. Science students are in between.1 Evidence from the National University of Colombia shows the faculties of Law and Economics leading “education, psychology and sociology,” who in turn lead the natural sciences in radicalism.2 One minor departure from the pattern of highly active social sciences was reported in a study of three faculties in the University of Buenos Aires, where Silvert and Bonilla show that students in the exact sciences and even medicine are more active in politics than the economics students, in that they more often participated in street rallies or party meetings. However, the most radical faculty in Buenos Aires is letters and philosophy, which includes social science departments.3 In Mexico, also, the economics faculty of the National University is by far the most leftist, with law second. The responses of commerce, engineering and medical students are much more conservative.4

Data from universities in Teheran, Pakistan and the United States show greater leftism among humanities and social science students than among scientists and professionals. In Teheran, literature and law students lead the others in leftism with 56 per cent and 60 per cent leftist responses respectively, as contrasted with engineering, which included only 23 per cent leftists.5

A similar relationship was discovered in the 1952 survey of eleven U.S. universities, in which humanities students led the others in leftism (even though in those McCarthy era days their “leftism” was a timid variety); engineers, business administration, education and agriculture students were more conservative.6 Further, the Pakistan survey of four universities in 1963 showed humanities and social science students leading in leftism, with science in the middle and the professions least leftist.7 Likewise, in his study of Puerto Rican students’ identity, Soares controlled for father’s education and found substantial differences in leftism remaining when he compared intellectual. science and professional students. Intellectuals were most and professionals least leftist.8 In most eases the radical partisans are also the most active and informed students.9 This is true in the case of the Indian students. The various majors generally show similar variations for leftism, participation and information.

Several fields of study share similar “intellectual or cognitive styles of performance” and we shall group the students from the Indian sample into three different categories according to nature of the appropriate cognitive performance. We shall designate commerce, law, military and other professional students as “professional,” students in the humanities and social sciences will be considered as “intellectuals,” while the remaining students are all “science” students.10

Because in India the leftist students tend to be the best informed and most politically dedicated of all students, we shall be interested in examining this constellation of “politicized leftism” as the dependent variable to be explained. Hence, we shall employ a very comprehensive measure of politicization constructed from many items relating to party and international bloc allegiance, interest in participation in politics, information about politics, as well as extreme attitudes of discontent with the political responsiveness of public officials The scale reflects not mere leftism, but active, protest-oriented, highly informed political involvement. Even grouped in this gross fashion, some minor differences appear. Professionals are 21 per cent, scientists 22 per cent and intellectuals 28 per cent politicized leftists. This is typical of the pattern found in the other countries-the “intellectual” cognitive style, as exemplified by social science and humanities students, is associated with radical activism, with science and professional students following in that order.

To what can this pattern of variation be attributed? At least three modes of explanation occur in speculative discussions but have rarely, if ever, been subjected to the explanation in terms of preexisting personality traits of students who enter different fields of study; the second is the explanation in terms of differing characteristics of the roles which the academic disciplines prepare students, and the third is in terms of differential recruitment from different social classes, regions or backgrounds into the professional, scientific and humanistic or social scientific fields of study.

Personality, Politics and Field of Study

The first explanatory mode points primarily to personality variables—emotional predispositions, cognitive styles, basic values, and the like, which presumably ante-date and “fit” both the field of study and the political style which the person selects. Assuredly, there are important differences between the personalities of students in the different academic disciplines and these differences do exist before the held of study is selected. Unfortunately, no specific link has been demonstrated between the traits characteristic of the different fields and particular political orientations. Any satisfactory argument in the first mode should demonstrate that the constellation of traits or attitudes characterizing students in particular departments, when controlled, explains away the association between political viewpoint and academic field.

The difficulty here lies in discerning the relevant personality characteristics which precede and guide the decision as to occupational choice and politics. Morris Rosenberg, after reporting that Ginzberg`s search for personality determinants of occupational choice was fruitless, nevertheless points to several significant attitudinal sets which occur differentially among students preparing for different occupations. Faith in people, for example, is greater among American students who plan to enter “people·oriented” occupations, who tend to “move toward” people, while it is lower among business students, who mistrust people, “move against” people, seek extrinsic rewards for their work but who have high administrative skill. A strong self-expressive orientation is found among students of the arts and sciences, who “move away” from people.11 The attitude of faith in people appears to be a significant aspect of personality, relevant both for occupation and for democratic values.

Goldschmid has also demonstrated that personality differences existing at the time students enter the university can be used to predict choice between humanistic or scientific pursuits. He finds science students more interested in matters of practical, immediate application; he finds them prudent, conventional, with strict control of impulse, a restricted range of interests, introverted, logical, valuing form and structure, impersonal, with critical habits of thinking. Humanities students, on the other hand, value personal independence, freedom from rules and constraints; they are self-centered, expressive, anxiety-prone. They have wide interests, are responsive to social and political affairs, seek social contacts, like innovation and ambiguity, and think in an intuitive cognitive mode.12 This view of their social responsiveness conflicts with Rosenberg’s assertion that humanists “move away” from people, but Rosenberg is comparing them to social service occupations, while Goldschmid includes social-service persons in the humanities and compares them with scientists.

Bereiter and Freedman say of American students that social scientists are generally the most liberal, followed by humanists and natural scientists, while engineering and agriculture students are consistently the least liberal. Liberalism is usually correlated with intelligence, but engineers regularly are most intelligent and least liberal. Applied fields are conservative.13 Whether the explanation be “intelligence” or the different personality characteristics that are found among students, it is possible that pre-existing attitudes explain partisanship.

Roles, Politics, and Field of Study

The second mode of explanation is also plausible-that is the interpretation by reference to differences in the roles for which the academic departments prepare students. The importance of “anticipatory socialization” phenomena have been demonstrated in Rosenberg’s study of U. S. students. He found, for example, that students shifted their values over time to fit those typical of the occupation to which they were committed.14 There are important differences in the types of careers and behaviors appropriate to scientists, intellectuals and professionals. Not only are different opportunities for reward open to graduates of those fields, but there are different expectations as to the boundaries of legitimate concern, the spheres of competence proper for people in different fields.15 The different opportunities and exceptions as to future professional roles may account for some of the variation in, say, preferences for politics relating to the redistribution of income and opportunity.

Seymour Martin Lipset has noted,

Students engaged in the courses of study which entail something like apprenticeship for a definite profession, e.g. engineering, medicine and preparation for secondary school teaching, where employment prospects are fair, are likely to be less rebellious than students in courses of study without determinate destinations and in which the pattern of instruction does not re. quire personal contact between teachers and students. The most insecure of all are those without specific aims or prospects, who will have to compete for . . . inconsequential posts.”16

It is reasonable to assume that persons preparing for the less privileged professions will be more likely to entertain ideas of political reform, and that the different political styles between major fields of study proceed from the awareness of the differential opportunities attached to the respective roles.

A second aspect of the mode of explanation stressing role differences refers not so much to differences in privilege attached to academic roles as to differences in “proper scope of competence” attributed to such roles. We see in many areas an increasing “professionalization” of fields of study which had previously been public domain.

Just as in Goldschmid’s study humanities, the íntellectua1s” who emerge from a humanistic education have a very wide latitude of intellectual territory; the “functional specificity” of the intellectual’s role is considerably less than that of the scientist and even less than that of the professional. The limits of relevance and of specialized expertise are quite hazy in the case of the intellectual so that engagement in political or social controversy may be seen as an integral aspect of the role. Apart front the concern with esthetic matters. the great task of the intellectual is social criticism. the defining of new social issues. Some intellectuals do remain “detached” as Rosenberg commented, while those who enter highly “people-oriented jobs” draw upon their faith in people as a primary resource for their work. The archetypical intellectual, however, is concerned with human values of the widest variety. considering other people from a subjective point of view (rather than instrumentally or objectively, as Rosenberg’s businessman does) while still retaining a critical posture, looking for significant problems. The dual function of social empathy and social criticism makes it probable that the intellectual will press hard for social changes and challenge politically conservative institutions. By contrast, the professional focuses on small discrete areas.17

Differential Recruitment, Politics, and Field of Study

The third mode of explanation of the differences in political performance of students in different departments alludes to the differential recruitment patterns of the sexes, age levels, regions and social classes into those departments. The students in different majors do, often enough, differ in social origins. It is a bit of poetic license to designate the social science and humanities students in India as “intellectual,” for in fact they are rather frequently students who were not successful in obtaining places in professional or scientific departments because of low intellectual qualifications. The intellectuals are, on the whole, older than professional students and much older than the elite science students. Intellectuals come more often from rural regions, are more often married, non-Hindu, female, impoverished, and more often live in private lodgings than do professional and science students. Not all these differences are correlated with leftist activism, however, and therefore cannot he invoked as explaining the relationship with fields of study. In fact, the women students are slightly more conservative than the men and religion and marital status are not particularly related to political involvement. Nevertheless, the different concentrations of students from situations relevant to politics may, indeed, account for some of the differences between majors.

Testing the Explanations

Although no definite or methodologically ideal treatment of these matters is possible with the materials afforded by the Indian survey of university students, it is nevertheless possible to make an approach toward ascertaining the value of the first and third modes of explanation. We cannot assess here the significance of explanations based on anticipatory socialization for special roles, but we can in a sense add weight to it by the method of eliminating alternative explanations. We must establish the degree to which students in different disciplines are engaged in radical left-wing politics and thereupon determine whether these differences may be explained away by the predisposing social circumstances or by certain personality orientations which also predispose one toward radical political involvement. To the extent that controlling personality or the demographic background differences reduces the differential degree of politicized leftism between the intellectuals, scientists, and professionals, we shall conclude that the first or third mode of explanation, respectively, is adequate. We have no measure allowing us to control role differences to see whether the second mode of explanation would account for the differences between the politics of different majors.

Our analysis employs data collected by the American University and Lucknow University in 1952, through the Bureau of Social Science Research. Respondents were 2044 students of eleven Indian universities and the questionnaire design was based on that used by Cornell researchers in the study of eleven U. S. universities.18 Besides items bearing upon social origins and current life situations, there were questions about political preferences, level of information and very general attitudes, such as those Rosenberg used to measure “faith in people.” The attitudinal items were treated to factor analyses and the factors which emerged were examined for the correlations with the politicization scale.19 Those dimensions which seemed to represent general personality orientations and which were correlated to any appreciable degree with politicization were grouped together to form a multi-dimensional “psychological predisposition” variable, which, it held constant, might be expected to reduce the association between major field of study and politicization, if indeed (as asserted by the first mode of explanation), those psychological attributes are the primary source of that association. Such a composite variable is only useful for this special purpose; it is wholly meaningless as a measure of any theoretical construct except “those attitudes which are correlated with leftist activism,” which is hardly a trait of great theoretical clarity.

To obtain a similar composite variable for controlling demographic variables of the third explanatory mode, we selected several “background” variables known to correlate with leftism. Controlling that composite variable might he expected to reduce the association between major and politicization it (as asserted in the third explanatory mode), differential recruitment from different social circumstances account for the apparent association between field of study and politics.

On the other hand, it neither the psychological nor the predisposing social circumstances reduce the association, the second mode of explanation (anticipatory socialization) gains a certain weight, although the first and third modes are not ruled out in any conclusive sense, inasmuch as other personality or social variables not entering our measures may be of decisive importance. The multi-dimensional variables used here were not derived from theoretical considerations.

Of the two varimax and oblimax factor analyses, one treated items relevant to modernism and the other items particularly relevant to authoritarianism. Eight factors appeared in each analysis, and for present purposes we are interested only in using the relevant factor scores as variables to construct a composite psychological predisposition index, Which, if controlled, tests in a very general way the first mode of explaining the association between major and leftist activism.

From the traditionalism analysis we utilized the factor scores from five factors and from the authoritarianism analysis we used three. The dimensions entering the personality composite index were these eight: (1) A factor which we call “traditionalism” which accounted for .13 of the total varimax communality, and which had highest loadings (.52) on disapproval of common social relations with different communal groups and disapproval of free association for men and women. (2) “Trust,” a factor very similar to Rosenberg’s “faith in people,” accounting for .11 of the total communality, had highest loadings (.75) on agreement that people can be trusted and that they help others. (3) “Will power,” a factor accounting for .11 of the total communality, was composed mostly of disagreement (loading .99) that will power is the most important quality for success, (4) “Non-fatalism” which we titled a factor which accounted for .10 of the communality, and which had its highest loading (-.98) on the view that fate is the cause of most things that happen to one. (5) “Non-religiosity” a factor accounting for .10 of the communality, had its highest loadings (.68) on the expression of no need for religious faith. (6) A factor which we called “limited respect for authority,” accounting for .09 of the communality, represented (.99) the belief that respect for superiors was not the most important quality for success. From the authoritarianism factor analysis, (7) “Emotional well-being,” a factor accounting for .14 of the communality, was composed largely of items relating to infrequency of upset stomach. nervousness, and the like. (Loadings were about .53 for these items.) (8) “Authoritarian militancy,” a factor accounting for .14 of the total communality, had highest loading (.44) on the agreement that insult to national honor must always be punished, even if it leads to war, and on the belief that children should be taught to obey and should be treated more strictly. In no case were the factors which had high loadings on one factor also important components of another factor, although that is not important for the present anyway.

Factors 1 through 4 and factor 7 were negatively correlated with politicization, while factors 5, 6, and 8 were positively correlated. The other factors were not

We found, then, that politicized leftist oriented Indian students have modern values on caste, family, and communal relations, are mistrustful of the good will and helpfulness of most other persons, skeptical that “will power” has much efficacy in bringing about success, fatalistic (not in the traditional sense of “fate” but in the conviction that “social| and economic conditions beyond one’s own control” cause more things than one’s own efforts do.20 They are less often religious and do not regard “respect for superiors” important for success. They report more symptoms of psychological distress and more authoritarian values in matters of child discipline and military retaliation than do less ideologically committed students. The profile outlined by these factors is a rather angular silhouette.

The composite demographic variable was constructed from five items. The graduate students were more politicized than undergraduates, the students from rural areas more so than those who lived in cities, those who lived in hostels or private lodging more so than those who lived with parents or other relatives, and those attending Calcutta, Travancore, Osmania or Bombay Universities more so than students attending universities in other regions. On the basis of these facts we were able to control the composite “social predisposition” of the students.21

When the relationship between major and politicized leftism was examined, controlling first the psychological composite variable and then the demographic social background variable, we found that neither of the composite variables reduced the association. Further, although there was some disproportion in the number of “psychologically predisposed” students in the humanities and social sciences, there was no evidence of differential recruitment from consistently predisposed social circumstances into the different academic fields. We must conclude that the variables introduced as “plausible specimens” of the third explanatory mode (differential social recruitment) are not adequate to account {or the variation in politicization between the different academic branches. A similar inference must follow from inspection of Table 3, the table which was constructed to test the first explanatory mode, the “personality” approach. Hence, at least those personal values and traits which are available in the present questionnaire and which are related to political style do not account for the association in question.

When the distinguishing psychological (or general attitudinal) characteristics are held constant the major continues to differentiate the politically engaged leftists from the non-politicized, although the attitudinal factors themselves make more difference than the major does. Nevertheless, among those whose psychological “bent” is fitted for radical activism, the field of study has a stronger influence on actual political involvement than it does among the student sample as a whole. The direction of association among the fields of study remains the same—intellectuals are consistently most politicized and professionals least. The psychological differences between intellectuals are considerably more decisive for their political involvement than for professional and science students. That is, the traditional. religious, non-authoritarian, trusting, deferential, emotionally secure humanities students who believe in the causal efficacy of will power and one’s own efforts are far less politicized than are the other intellectual students. One could argue that the intellectual is situationally free to engage in politics if he is temperamentally so inclined, while the students of professional and scientific subjects are inhibited by the limitations of the roles, regardless of whether or not their psychological characteristics would make political activity appealing,

Personality dimensions do seem to have important connections with political style, but the fields of study also have an independent effect which is not explained away by pre-existing psychological or social differences-at least not by those which we have introduced here. The social background composite variable does prove telling in Table 4 in specifying the connections between the psychological and the political.

The kind of social situation the student is in has a different effect depending upon his ideological or psychological “set”- so much so that the student whose psyche is non-political according to our concocted personality scale, is negatively (albeit insignificantly) responsive toward the social effects which predispose normally toward leftist activism. To put the matter in a way which is more congenial to sociologists, the psychological orientation which a student develops is decisive in the development of political style, and especially so for students whose situation in the social structure would normally favor their activism. Just as we saw that the intellectual student was “free” to engage in politics if he found the idea temperamentally appealing, while science and professional students lacked the open option, we also see a similar effect in the case of the students whose “social background” is conducive to radical activism, for them much more depends upon their personal orientations. For other students the social background sets limits on what personal inclinations can do. or at least the tables lend themselves to this speculation. Actually, only by introducing all these variables simultaneously do we reveal the magnitude of the differences which each of the variables makes. The effect of social background is greater here than before because it is specific for those with high psychological predisposition. Within each group the intellectual students remain the most politicized of all and in all except one group the professionals are the least politicized. The social and psychological dimensions have an effect on leftist political activity, but academic discipline has its own independent effect and is not explained away by these variables.

One can still speculate about why this is so: possibly the divergent role expectations are significant. Of course, we have not exhausted all possible psychological and social background factors which could conceivably explain the association away. The field is still open for explanations of the first and third modes.

Conclusion

Politicized leftism was found to be high among students whose personality orientations and values were modern, mistrustful (or lacking “faith in people”), who regarded “will power” and one’s own efforts as causally ineffective, who were nonreligious, and who considered respect for superiors inconsequential for success, who were emotionally unstable and authoritarian with regard to child discipline and military aggression. Such active leftists often came from rural areas and lived as impoverished graduate students in hostels or private lodgings at Calcutta, Travancore, Osmania or Bombay universities, Nevertheless, holding all these facts constant, the kind of academic major in which they were involved made a substantial difference in the political style which they adopted. Students in the social sciences and humanities were more politicized and more leftist than were science students, who in turn were more so than the students preparing for professions. Especially among those whose social circumstances were normally conducive to politicized leftism, everything turned upon their personality orientations; demographic facts were by no means single-handed determinants. Personality characteristics, social background and academic major were significant independently for the development of political behavior among Indian students. The influence of the major did not stem from differential recruitment of psychologically or demographically predisposed students. Quite possibly, anticipatory sociali­zation for different levels of social status and different types of cognitive endeavor account for the differences which intellectual, scientific, and professional students showed in acquiescing or protesting against their political condition.22

Tables

Table 1. Major and leftism, participation, information in India. BSSR, 1952. Per cent of students in different fields of study who are leftist, who participate in politics, and who are well informed about politics.
Fields of study Leftist Participate Informed
Commerce (109) 24 51 42
Science (461) 31 39 49
English (59) 48 51 44
Other languages (24) 59 55 34
Political science (94) 44 75 65
Sociology, economics, anthro (193) 48 75 65
Law (136) 45 55 55
History (55) 55 58 60
Other professions (276) 28 40 44
Philosophy, psychology, education (236) 29 49 40

Numbers in parentheses indicate size of sample from which percentages were computed.

Table 2. Percentage of politicized leftism among academic fields, controlling pre-disposing social background (percentage of politicized leftists)
Low predisposition for leftism in social background High predisposition for leftism in social background
Professional Intellectual Scientific Professional Intellectual Scientific
21% 26% 23% 22% 31% 25%
(174) (209) (154) (214) (255) (181)

Numbers in parentheses indicate size of sample from which percentages were computed.

Table 3. Politicized leftism among academic fields, controlling psychological predisposition
Low psychological predisposition for leftism High psychological predisposition for leftism
Professional Intellectual Scientific Professional Intellectual Scientific
16% 23% 20% 34% 47% 36%
(365) (378) (330) (85) (134) (70)

Numbers in parentheses indicate size of sample from which percentages were computed.

Table 4. Politicized leftism among academic fields, controlling psychological and social predispositions
Low social predisposition for leftism
Low psychological predisposition for leftism High psychological predisposition for leftism
Professional Intellectual Scientific Professional Intellectual Scientific
18% 26% 23% 24% 33% 33%
(131) (123) (115) (25) (40) (21)
High social predisposition for leftism
Low psychological predisposition for leftism High psychological predisposition for leftism
Professional Intellectual Scientific Professional Intellectual Scientific
15% 22% 19% 42% 52% 39%
(152) (143) (129) (40) (66) (36)

Numbers in parentheses indicate size of sample from which percentages were computed.

References

1 Seymour Martin Lipset, “University Students and Politics in Underdeveloped Countries,” Comparative Education Review, this issue, p. 154. This note presents information from several different countries. Indian data from Bureau of Social Science Research, Political Attitudes of Indian Students, (Washington: The American University, 1955), p. 47. ^

2 Kenneth N. Walker, “Determinants of Castro Support Among Latin American University Students,” Berkeley Journal of Sociology, 1964, p.47. ^

3 Kalman Silvert and Frank Bonilla, Education and the Social Meaning of Development; A Preliminary Statement. (N.Y.: American Universities Field Stall, 1961), pp. 127-28, as cited in Lipset, op. cit. ^

4 A Study of Opinions’ of University Students in Mexico (Mexico City: Industrial Research Associates, 1964), pp. 16-19, 20-43, as cited in Lipset. op. cit. ^

5 The Teheran Survey was conducted by EMNID, a German Research Organization in 1963. N 300. Leftism here was measured by admiration for USSR and dislike of private ownership. ^

6 Data from Harvard, Wayne, UCLA, Fisk, Wesleyan, Cornell, Michigan, Texas, Dartmouth, Yale, North Carolina were collected by Goldsen, et. al., researchers at Cornell. ^

7 EMNID also conducted this survey in Pakistan, sampling from Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar, and Dacca Universities, 1963. ^

8 A. D. Soares, “The Politics of Intellectuals,” in S. M. Lipset and Aldo Solari, eds., Elites and Development in Latin America (New York: Oxford University Press, forthcoming). ^

9 See especially, G. A. D. Soares, “The Active Few: A Study of Student Political Ideology and Participation in Developing Countries,” Comparative Education Review, this issue, pp. 205-219. Soares argues that radicalism of either the right or the left is associated with heightened political involvement and that both the radicalism and partisan activism stem from the student’s relatively well-integrated self-image as both citizen and student. ^

10 A happier procedure would be to group according to the respondents self-identification as professional, intellectual or scientist rather than according to the assessment of the researcher about the nature of the majors. Soares found considerable diversity in self-identification among students of the same fields of study. Social scientists, in particular, have the option of identifying as scientists, professionals or as intellectuals. Unfortunately, subjective classification is not available for Indian students. ^

11 Morris Rosenberg, Occupations and Values (Glencoe: The Free Press, 1957), pp. 34-43. ^

12 Marcel Lucien Goldschmid. The Prediction of College Major in the Sciences and Humanities by Means of Personality Tests, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, 1965. Goldschmid’s procedures were precise; he tested his subjects by psychological inventories and established the position of the major by a panel of judges ordering the fields on humanistic-scientific continua. Correlations between personality and major proved significant. ^

13 Carl Bereiter and Mervin B. Freedman, “Fields of Study and the People in Them,” in Nevitt Sanford, ed., The American College (New York: Wiley, 1964), p. 568. The greater “conservatism” of the applied fields can hardly be attributed wholly to the lower socioeconomic status of such students, for in many aspects of political policy, lower classes are not conservative. ^

14 Rosenberg, op. cit. p. 83. ^

15 The privileged and satisfied standing of professionals is discussed in S. M. Lipset and M. Schwartz, “The Politics of Professionals,” in H. M. Vollmer and D. L. Mills, eds., Professionalization (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1966), pp. 299-309. This is especially relevant in India, where the professional students have higher aspirations relative to their parent’s income than intellectuals or scientists. ^

16 Lipset, “University Students and Politics,” P, 141. Political rebelliousness in the non-communist countries is usually synonymous with “leftism.” We cannot demonstrate whether those academic groups which would be leftist here tend to be rightist or “Capitalistic” in the communist nations, as would be expected if political deviance stems from any protest against the status quo, whatever the status quo may be for the student. ^

17 G. A. D. Soares, “The Politics of Intellectuals,” op. cit. ^

18 The Cornell research is reported in Rose Goldsen, et al., They Went to College (Princeton: Van Nostrand, 1960), and in Rosenberg, op. cit. The Indian data were collected at Aligarh, Agra, Benares, Bombay, Calcutta, Delhi, Lucknow, Madras, Nagpur, Osmania and Travancore (now Kerala) universities. Stratification was made according to as many of the following variables as possible: academic class, major field, division of the university and sex. Within each stratum sampling was random; each university was asked to obtain a given number of questionnaires proportional to its size. Normally, questionnaires were administered to the students in groups. Political Attitudes of Indian Students. ^

19 The factor analyses were carried out by G. A. D. Soares with the research assistance of Marguerite McIntyre. I am pleased to have the opportunity to use factor scores in the present research. One methodological difficulty should be made explicit; we treat the attitudinal factors as personality or psychological traits, presuming their antecedent status. While other researchers have demonstrated that the effects would take place whichever came first, (Rosenberg notes this, p. 22) we cannot do so here. One could, I suppose, interpret these attitudes as role-expectations instead of personality traits, as I have done.  ^

20 In other factor analyses fatalism has been an attribute of the traditional rather than the modern orientation. It should be apparent from the Indian responses, however, that materialistic determinism is, for the moderns, just as compelling a philosophy as the traditional fatalism.  ^

21 Because of interaction among the components, the composite social-background variable did not discriminate as well between politicized and non-politicized students as did the psychological composite variable. In fact, each of the individual components of this variable correlates as highly as does the variable. ^

22 I wish to thank the Institute of International Studies, University of California, Berkeley, for supporting my research. ^