A Study on the Relationship Between Mean Years of Schooling, Literacy Skills Level of the Countries, and Their Level of Democratic Development

Abstract

This study’s objective is to examine the relationship between the mean years of schooling, level of adult literacyskills, and democratic development levels. The study was designed as a relational survey model. The analyticsemployed is the path analysis, which tests the existence of causal relationship between the variables. The statisticalanalysis indicates that a significant and strong relationship exists between the mean years of schooling and adultliteracy skills and further that a significant, medium level, relationship is present between the countries’ adult literacyskills and their democratic development levels. Moreover, literacy skills create a significant mediation impact on therelationship between the mean years of schooling and democratic development level. Also significant is the indirectimpact of the nations’ mean years of schooling on their democratic development levels. Countries seeking to sustainand protect participative and deep democracy may need to review their formal and informal education policies.Therefore, it may be especially necessary to attach greater importance to cognitive-verbal processes in formaleducation institutions as a departure point of action.