Summary

The goal of this study was to examine the political knowledge of people belonging to different social strata. The "political maps" model was used. With the method of hierarchic l classification, subjective similarities between Chilean parties and politicians can be revealed, which can then be translated into geometric structures by means of Nonmetric Multidimensional Scaling (NMDS). Comparisons made between different groupswith different educational levels indicated that people with a low educational leve! have marked problems when it comes to classifying the substructures of the larf?e política! blocks. In this context, the possible implication of a future differentiation of the política! system on the knowledge structure of social strata having a low leve! of education is discussed.