The Relationship between Book Reading, National Identity, and Nationalism among Secondary School Students

The current study focused on the education-nationalism relationship and aimed to understand whether the positive influence of education in the reduction of nationalist attitudes simply relies on the educational level reached, or is related to the kind of school attended to reach the level. Moreover, we were interested in understanding if book reading has a role in reducing nationalism. Seven hundred twenty Italian students (female = 59%; mean age = 18, SD =0.5) attending their senior year of secondary school (lyceum = 49%, technical = 51%) completed a questionnaire that included blind and constructive nationalism scales, ethnic national identification and book reading behaviour. We performed a structural equation model. Results showed that (1) lyceum students are less nationalistic than technical students are; (2) ethnic national identity drives both nationalism and patriotism; (3) lyceum attendance and book reading prevent ethnic national identity. Overall, the study highlighted that the strongest effect of education on nationalism pertains only to students with higher educational expectations, suggesting that the role of educational systems as diffusor of liberal values needs to be rethought.