An Empirical Study On The Influence Of Higher Education On Political Trust

Over the past 40 years of reform and opening up,China has achieved remarkable development achievements,and the Party and the government have gained the general support and affirmation of the people.Therefore,many studies believe that,on the whole,Chinese citizens have a high level of political trust.Political trust is not only related to the legitimacy of political domination,but also affects social stability.So,what factors affect the political trust of Chinese citizens? This paper holds that citizens are the trustors of political trust,and the heterogeneity of whether they accept higher education will affect their political trust through its influence on their political psychology.Meanwhile,the relationship between higher education and political trust is also influenced by local environmental factors.Therefore,from the perspective of higher education,this paper adopts the thought of combining micro and macro to investigate the mechanism of higher education affecting political trust.First of all,this paper uses the data of Chinese mainland samples of WVS6(2012-2014)and uses SPSS and its Process plug-in for regression analysis to test the influence of higher education on political trust and the mediating effect of political psychology.The results show that: At the individual level,citizens with different education levels have different political trust.Political cognition and political intention have a partial intermediary role between higher education and political trust,and the positive effect of political cognition is smaller than the negative effect of political intention.But the mediating effect of political affection does not exist.Next,combining the survey data of economic,political,cultural and social aspects of most provinces in China,this paper uses HLM to build a multilevel model of higher education influencing political trust,and investigates the impact of regional environmental factors on the relationship between higher education and political trust.It is found that provincial environmental factors can weaken the negative correlation between higher education and political trust to a large extent.First,provincialenvironmental factors can affect political trust.The price level,social trust and internet usage are negatively correlated with political trust,while the level of democracy and the democratic value are positively correlated with political trust.Second,provincial environmental factors can moderate the relationship between higher education and political trust.The improvement of economic development level,income inequality,level of democracy and democratic value will strengthen the negative impact between higher education and political trust,while the increase of price prices,social trust and public service quality will weaken the negative relationship between higher education and political trust.Finally,based on the results of empirical analysis,this paper holds that in order to cultivate the political trust of Chinese citizens,on the one hand,it is necessary to strengthen and implement the political function of education;on the other hand,efforts should be made to comprehensively improve China's governance capacity and level.