Latent and manifest effects in law enforcement higher education: Career choice and motivation examination of Hungarian police students

Abstract

Aim: The study analyzes the functions of the education system, focusing on the training of police officers in the Hungarian higher education system. The examined educational functions can be explained not only by the internal features arising from the peculiarities of the training systems, but also by the manifestations of the social needs towards them, ie latent and manifest functions are created. It is important to go around the reproduction of culture, that is, cultural reproduction, aspects of shaping the personality of individuals, the
main possibilities for reproducing or changing the social structure. We need to analyze the possibilities of performing various direct “service” functions as well as the functions that generate social change. In order to fulfill the listed tasks, there are significant economic, state and social interests, in the collision of which the individual functions may also conflict with each other.
Methodology: In this study, we analyzed the functions of Hungarian law enforcement higher education using quantitative and qualitative methods. Career choice motivations and values of police students were examined using questionnaire data and Liker scales.
Findings: The examined educational functions can be explained not only by the internal characteristics arising from the peculiarities of the training systems, but also by the manifestations of the social needs of them. The scholarship and the future secure job also have a motivating effect on police students, so the activation of a vision function has a strong effect. The transmission of values in higher education requires continuous monitoring during the training, as the students participating in it want to enter the police career with a changing background, vision and motivational tools.
Value: The study presents the Hungarian data of an international research. It examines in detail the evaluation of graduate students enrolled in law enforcement higher education in terms of professional values, professionalism, and vocation. We assume that expertise, responsibility, and conscious career choice can contribute to the development of a stable professional identity, which can still be formed at university and thus the manifest effect of education is emphasized. The study also analyzes how the impact of full-time police officers on professional work and how education can positively influence it can be started with a pluralized attitude.