Abstract
Does state-led patriotic education effectively shape young people’s political and moral values? Many regimes introduce state-sponsored civic and patriotic classes in schools and universities with the aim of influencing the younger generation’s social and political orientations. Yet, it remains unclear whether such educational interventions are effective in influencing young people’s political beliefs. To investigate this issue, we turn to the contemporary Russian context. This paper leverages a natural experiment conducted in Russia to achieve causal inference regarding the impact of state-led patriotic education on youth social and political values. Specifically, we exploit the introduction of a compulsory class, “Conversations About Important Things,” implemented by Russian authorities in 2022 across public high schools. Utilizing data from an online survey of 410 current university students, we compare moral and political values between students who participated in the class (freshmen during the 2023–2024 academic year) and those who did not (earlier cohorts for whom the class was unavailable). Our findings underscore the effectiveness of the new curriculum: students exposed to the class demonstrate significantly stronger agreement with statements prioritizing political loyalty as a key national value compared to their peers who lacked such exposure.