Are better educated individuals more likely to engage in anti-regime resistance and why? Scholars of democratic politics widely view education as a key factor shaping political participation. Yet, the effect of education on participation in noninstitutionalized political conflict is less well understood. Using data from an original large-scale survey of participants and nonparticipants in Palestinian resistance, this article demonstrates that education has a complex, curvilinear effect on participation: intermediate levels of education significantly increase the likelihood of participation in protest but additional years of education do not. These findings are explained through a novel, institutionalist argument, which focuses on the structure of education rather than its content. The article’s conclusions challenge existing perspectives that characterize participants in political conflict as either educated, underemployed, and disaffected or poor, uneducated, and marginalized.
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