Mechanisms linking individual education and european identification: A case study of Spanish youth

A robust literature documents that education is one of the strongest individual-level predictors of European identification (EUID), yet the mechanisms underlying this relationship remain incompletely understood. Standard cross-national surveys capture EUID but lack the detailed measures needed to test key theorized pathways, particularly the transactionalist expectation that transnational travel experiences shape identification. Drawing on YOEDER (youth education and European attitudes), a 4-wave panel survey of Spanish youth aged 18–29 (N = 16,073), this presentation estimates a multiple-indicators multiple-causes (MIMIC) structural equation model to decompose the education–EUID link through 7 mediators: EU travel and satisfaction, EU institutional knowledge, universalist values, income, press consumption, peers' opinions of the EU, and foreign language ability. Results show that education is positively associated with EUID and six of the seven mediators and that all mediators are positively linked to EUID. Satisfactory travel experience within the EU emerges as the dominant channel, accounting for roughly 44% of education's total effect, and this pattern holds under an alternative sequential specification and after accounting for travel to other world regions. Disentangling frequency from satisfaction shows that the affective quality of travel, not mere exposure, drives the mediation. These findings extend transactionalist accounts of European identity by highlighting the concrete experiential pathway through which education fosters identification with Europe.