Recent postings of
this blog have renewed the blog’s efforts to document the level of political
knowledge among students and young adults.
The reason for this reporting is that the blog has identified imparting
political knowledge as one of the primary aims of civics educations. That reportage has made the claim that to
date, civics education has not done a sufficiently good enough job regarding
this aim. This posting continues this
concern by looking at the adult population and its knowledge of political
realities.
One
can point out that gauging how knowledgeable US students are or how
knowledgeable their adult counterparts are, is dicey at best. For example, tests or surveys can miss asking
about what a respondent knows.
Therefore, results are speculative.
What often goes unreported are the types of knowledge that stem from the
more day to day experiences: the type of
knowledge obtained on the streets.
Despite
these reservations, a meaningful study of adults was conducted by the Pew
Research Center in 2014.[1] It found the following:
(Each entry below
includes: paraphrased versions of the
survey questions, the percent of respondents answering the questions correctly,
and the correct answer)
·
What is the federal minimum wage? 73% of respondents got it correct. The right answer (in 2014): $7.25.
·
In what nation does ISIS control
territory? 67% of respondents got it
correct. The right answer (in
2014): Syria.
·
Ukraine was a part of what political
entity? 60% of respondents got it
correct. The right answer: USSR.
·
What is Common Core? 49% of respondents got it correct. The right answer: national educational standards.
·
What is the source of North Dakota’s
economic boom? 46% of respondents got it
correct. The right answer: oil.
·
In 2014, what country has an outbreak of
Ebola? 46% of respondents got it
correct. The right answer: Liberia.
·
What is the name of Israel’s prime
minister? 38% of respondents got it
correct. The right answer (in
2014): Netanyahu.
·
What is the current unemployment
rate? 33% of respondents got it
correct. The right answer (in
2014): circa 6%.
·
In which country do Shiites outnumber
Sunnis? 29% of respondents got it
correct. The right answer: Iran.
·
Who is the chairperson of the Federal Reserve
(FED)? 24% of respondents got it
correct. The right answer: Yellen.
·
In which budget line item does the federal
government spend most funds? 20% of
respondents got it correct. The right
answer: Social Security.
·
What portion of the US population is below
the poverty line? 20% of respondents got
it correct. The right answer (in 2014): 15%.
How
good are these percentages? How good are
the questions? Whether these are useful
questions about our political world one can only speculate. It seems obvious that given the state of
politics today and how general political issues are discussed and argued about,
these questions seem to be relevant, at least in how the media portray
contemporary issues. If this is true,
then the reported percentages of correct answers give one, as with much of what
is reported in this blog, reason to be concerned.
Particularly
distressful are the results of the questions concerning the unemployment rate,
FED chairperson, government spending, and the poverty level. These questions reflect or are related to how
well the nation is doing.
So,
as one reviews what the levels of political knowledge are and how those levels
might affect how much the citizenry is into promoting social
capital,[2] one has ample
reason to be concerned. It also affects
how a citizen thinks about politics, as this blog reported on the lack of consistency
in such thinking in previous postings.
What does this mean to civics education and the efforts of the
nation’s schools to promote social capital? All of this
reveals a worrisome and sad situation for one who is concerned with the health
of both the nation’s civic body and the state of civics education. Beyond that, the concern can be extended to
the health of the body politic and its interests.
[1] Pew Research, “How
Increasing Ideological Uniformity and Partisan Antipathy Affect Politics,
Compromise and Everyday Life,” Center Political Polarization in the American Public, June 12, 2014, accessed
on February 21, 2017,
http://www.people-press.org/2014/06/12/political-polarization-in-the-american-public/
.
[2] Political scientist, Robert Putnam, tells us that
social capital means having an active, public-spirited citizenry, egalitarian
political relations, and a social environment of trust and cooperation.
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