A qualitative assessment of the impact of level of education on voting: A study of a select group of university graduates in Harare.

Abstract

This study investigates the impact of education on voting. The study aims to test relevance of education-voting link and better understand the impact of education on voting behaviour. Qualitative methodology was adopted in the study and semi structured interviews were used to investigate the aim of the study. The researcher interviewed fourteen male and female university graduates. These participants were recruited through judgemental and snow-balling sampling techniques. The interactionist theory was used as the theoretical frame-work in this study. Its major assumption is that individuals are active beings whose action is based on how they define situations. Thus human action is seen as meaningful and purposeful driven by the subjective interpretations of circumstances by the actors. These assumptions were seen as very important in studying and understanding the research problem. Analysis of the responses confirms that education-voting link is less relevant among university graduates studied. Mores so, level of education impact on voting is not always positive and is dependent of various interacting factors. This contradicts with the widely held view that education always has a positive impact on voting. Therefore, emphasised in the study is that education does not influence voter turnout on its own it interact with other set of factors to either positively or negatively influence voting behaviour. The study concludes that the impact of education on voting is relative to context, time, perceptions and status of the educated in relation to age, gender, income, marriage and affiliation to trade union.