Politics on campus: how social hierarchy and individual background affect political behavior

Abstract

Today’s college students are our future potential political leaders, and this research aims to identify voting, political participation, and leadership trends among them. With this information we can discover the political traits that this demographic finds desirable in an elected leader, and conceptualize what our future society may look like based on social and political issues that this generation feels passionate about. A survey was sent to 2,000 randomly selected University of Wisconsin-Stout students. Multiple-choice and writein questions were used to gather the political opinions and participation behaviors of the respondents. It was found that specific demographic characteristics are often related to a set of political ideas and opinions. Where one is placed within the social hierarchy has an effect on views of political leaders, level of political participation, and perception of potential future leadership roles.