The Purposes of Education: A Citizen Perspective Beyond Political Elites

Education has long been an area of political debate in the United States, with politicians and policymakers advocating for distinct societal and/or individual purposes of K–12 education. In this article, we examine the public opinion on the purpose of education, and we explore whether this political divide on the purpose of education is also represented in the broad public opinion. For a sample 19,032 U.S. respondents, we test whether citizens’ partisanship corresponds with their opinions on seven educational purposes. We observe that the public opinion represents a multifunctional view on education and that some but rather small differences relate to partisanship. We frame these findings in the existing literature and postulate avenues for further research.