the times december NUMBER NUMBER university boom creates era of sexual tolerance by helen rumbelow the boom in university education has led to a sea change in britain s tolerance of homosexuality according to a report just under half the people now believe that homosexuality is always or mostly wrong down from three quarters NUMBER years ago according to the british social attitudes survey regarded as one of the best indicators of popular opinion that trend is mirrored by the attitude towards ethnic minorities with NUMBER per cent of people now saying they are not at all racially prejudiced compared with NUMBER per cent in NUMBER geoffrey evans a politics professor at oxford university decided to focus on what has caused britain to become more open minded in a report published today the study from the national centre for social research is based on interviews with a cross section of NUMBER NUMBER people young people are much more tolerant than their elders with a quarter of twentysomethings believing that homosexual sex is always wrong compared with two thirds of pensioners but the key to converting a bigot is to send him or her to college with graduates twice as accepting of homosexuals as those with no gcses and a third less racist that transformation happened no matter what social class the student came from and with NUMBER per cent of young people now attending university it was a powerful social effect professor evans said mr blair s famous mantra education education education seems far less consequential now than when first announced in NUMBER as britain struggles with an overburdened health service and the reality that as more and more people get degrees degrees buy less and less he said but the growth of higher education can provide a bulwark against the undermining of liberal democracy through intolerance he added he decided to see whether the tolerance conferred by schooling was just political correctness by testing how many civil rights the educated would give to an unattractive minority white supremacists again people scored higher the longer they had spent at school and university with nearly two thirds of graduates saying that white supremacists should have the right to give television interviews or stand in elections three times as many as those with no qualifications it is not clear why those with higher education are more tolerant the report says adding that it may be simply because university students have increased contact with alternative points of view professor evans also looked at whether the young may grow out of their idealism but found the opposite to be true thirtysomethings were more than twice as likely to say there was nothing wrong with homosexuality as they were when they were in their early twenties he said that as these groups of more educated young people replaced the older generation britain would become an ever more relaxed place soft drugs have also grown in widespread acceptability with more than half the country wanting cannabis to be legalised compared with a third seven years ago that is probably because the use of cannabis is now so widespread with a quarter of those surveyed saying that they had tried it a third of labour voters twice as many as conservatives had tried the drug and being young living in london and having a degree also increased the chances one issue that bucks the trend is hard drugs most take a strong position on heroin that has got stronger over the past seven years now the proportion of people who believe that heroin dealers should always be prosecuted has crept up to NUMBER per cent the views on heroin show that britain is by no means becoming a liberal free for all alison park co director of the study said people are making quite a clear distinction between what they think of as right and wrong on other matters the survey indicates that almost half those questioned think that most of the social security budget goes on unemployment benefits in fact they account for NUMBER per cent that union membership has fallen by a fifth in the past NUMBER years with just under a third of workers in a union and that half those questioned oppose secondary school selection in NUMBER the figure was NUMBER per cent the survey also indicates that NUMBER per cent of men aged between NUMBER and NUMBER live with their parents twice as many as women to unsubscribe from this group send an email to forteana unsubscribe URL your use of yahoo groups is subject to URL 