Fighting the Apathy

This week’s reading focused on public opinion, and how it is formed. As people grow up in this country they are socialized by agents of socialization such as their families, schools, pop culture, college education, and major events. Other factors that help determine voting preference and political ideologies are race and ethnicity, social class, region, education, gender, age, and religion. As we become voters our opinions are measured through public opinion polls, which arguably is one of the most influential ways citizens can affect government when there aren’t any upcoming elections.

When it comes to public opinions, I believe it’s important to pose the question- how much of a problem is it that the majority of americans do not have basic knowledge on how their government actually works, and what their individualized rights actually are? Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania surveyed American citizens randomly and found that only a quarter of Americans could name all three branches of government, a third couldn’t name one single branch of government, and that more than a third of American adults couldn’t name any of the rights guaranteed to us by the First Amendment. Arguably, when it comes to voting and being informed on basic public policy, civics isn’t always necessary. If Americans find politicians, a party, a lobbying group, etc., that they mostly agree with and vote based on their opinions, they still are participating in the American democracy. However, as we are seeing what could be called the dogmatization of our political parties and their supporters, we may even need to question that sentiment validity.

That being said, when it comes to national issues and disasters, such as the relief efforts in Puerto Rico, public opinion can be greatly affected by ignorance on what Puerto Rico actually is. With less than half of Americans actually knowing Puerto Ricans are American citizens, and 8 out of 10 Americans supporting cuts to foreign aid, it’s not surprising that opinion polls show Americans favoring help and aid to Florida and Texas over Puerto Rico. The correlations between people who don’t know that Puerto Ricans are US citizens and people who don’t support aid to Puerto Rico, begs the question- should we be better educating our citizens so they can be making informed opinions based on fact? And if the answer to that question is yes, how should we better educated our citizens on civics?

Jonathon R Cole, of The Atlantic, brings for the idea that maybe our problem with civics education is further rooted in our education system as a whole. Although I’m not sure blaming teachers being underpaid and incentivized to join other areas of the workforce is the cause of our extreme lack of understanding of our political process as a country, it’s interesting to think about how the two may correlate. Programs like Youth in Government (YIG), run on a national level through the YMCA, are attempting to fill in the gaps in our education system on the civics process, but are unable to reach every student. YIG alone is showing results of alumni being 30% more likely to vote in an election, 17% more likely to volunteer on a campaign, and 14% more likely to contact an elected official than their peers. This model of civics education seems to be fighting apathetic tendencies in our citizens, and if implemented in the public school system could improve the validity of our country’s public opinion.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/26/upshot/nearly-half-of-americans-dont-know-people-in-puerto-ricoans-are-fellow-citizens.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2017/09/28/a-new-example-of-how-little-americans-know-about-their-own-country/?utm_term=.9a5d1bd7b903

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/26/upshot/nearly-half-of-americans-dont-know-people-in-puerto-ricoans-are-fellow-citizens.html

https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/11/ignorance-does-not-lead-to-election-bliss/506894/

http://www.floridayig.net/benefits-of-participating/

6 Responses to "Fighting the Apathy"

Jackson Krase says:

October 10, 2017 at 12:18 am

I think you bring up a very pressing issue in your analysis on public opinion in regards to the political ignorance of the American population. Voter ignorance extends to both sides of the political spectrum and is a major obstacle in the way of effective policy decision making and implementation. It begs the question, how can one ensure his/her rights are protected if the individual does not even know what rights they even have? In addition, I also strongly agree that participation in American government is multifaceted and can involve many different pathways and that even if an American citizen votes based on morals divergent to your individual view, they are still participating in the American democracy. In the creation of policy to better educate United States citizens it is important to keep in mind that it is impossible, and far-fetched in such a large and diverse country, to create a policy that will be successful for every single American. Thus, the questions researchers and policymakers should be focused on are ways in which civic education can be molded and changed depending on demographics. Even though one ignorant voter does not pose that much of an issue for the American democratic process, the collective ignorance of an electorate can have devastating and detrimental impacts on everyday life in the United States.
Just as you noted Jonathon R. Cole for advancing, I also believe that the problems surrounding civic education in America are ultimately rooted in the American education system. However, I think fundamentally, Americans hold the view that the costs of them of acquiring certain political information largely surpasses any perceived benefit. It is from this concept of risk-reward that I find the potential solution of a Voter Achievement Test proposed by economist Bryan Caplan quite appealing. Caplan’s proposal involves creating an annual Voter Achievement Test with questions regarding the areas of politics, economics, and policy, and rewarding people through cash rewards based on their individual scores. I find this idea practical because it doesn’t drastically change the foundations of our election system but it does provide incentives for Americans to learn about their government.

Information on the Voter Achievement Test: http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2013/10/a_cheap_inoffen.html

Link To a JFK speech in which he talks about voter ignorance: https://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Research-Aids/JFK-Speeches/Vanderbilt-University_19630518.aspx
Yanbin Zhang says:

October 10, 2017 at 11:35 pm

Apparently, the low level of political participation by people and the poor knowledge about politics are both disastrous to the democratic system because it would enhance the gap between the government and the public opinion and eventually increase the distrust to government of people. To increase the participation and the ability to do so of ordinary people, it is most efficient to solve the problem from the very basic foundation —- to improve the civic education.
According to survey of “International Civic and Citizenship Education Study”, exercised by IEA, Denmark is the best for civic education for young people. Such systematic education actively plays an important role during the process of political socialization. All the student since 7th grade will begin to learn about the their civil right,judicial system, voting system and the way to announce their opinion in political events. But long before this, they have learnt a more general course “ethics” since primary school. This course gradually gives them the idea of human relation, self-identification, civil rights and community,and the correlation between individuals and the world. Those kids are been guided how to be a good and rational person before a good citizen.
Another factor besides the course is the academic qualification of teachers. It has been enforced for 30 years that all the teachers in Denmark regardless the level of education, must have the master degree and education background of education. With the highly developed civic education system, most people better understand the domestic politics and more likely to vote for their clear standing.
Yet it is still possible for people with good civic education don’t vote during the election. A healthy and encouraging voting system is the ground for people’s participation. Hahrie Han, a political science professor at the UCSB, puts forward a framework to ensure a good environment for voters: 1) People should be possible to vote without any barriers. 2) The open and fair competition makes people want to vote. 3) People are powerful to have tangible impact on policy decisions. And then, there would be an effective path for delivering the valid public opinion to the rulers.
Austin Liptrot says:

October 11, 2017 at 10:15 pm

Civics education is a tricky debate and I think each of your above posts bring up a number of points. First, Grace, I think that while the Youth in Government program sounds like a great organization, it simply cannot reach the wide majority of the population like civics education should. The education, to work properly must take place in public schools. While the YIG sounds to have potential to supplement an education, extracurricular such as that do not have the reach. Second, Jackson, while your idea of a test seems like a preposterous idea, the cash prizes would act to incentivize lower income citizens to learn civics, who suffer the most from poor education in schools. So theoretically your idea has some weight to it. Third, Yanbin, while yes it would be wonderful to have all American teachers require more education, the nation is still far behind that. However, pushing civics earlier in school, and more aggressively could improve political participation and knowledge. This would take more money from the shrinking budgets of school systems and require a major shift in school systems.
Lotte Elfering says:

October 12, 2017 at 12:34 pm

A very good blogpost on what I believe is a very important issue that needs to be addressed as soon as it can be. Civics education is necessary, as the previous commenters have already mentioned, and in many countries it has become a requirement to graduate secondary education. However, I wanted to focus on a different issue you raised, the point about Puerto Ricans. I agree it is appalling that not many people know Puerto Ricans are American citizens, and believe that the money spent on them is foreign aid.

However, I would wonder whether the same thing would apply if people actually knew the amount of money spend on foreign aid. For one of my other classes we had a debate about this issue, and it turns out that most Americans believe that the government spends upwards of 10-20% of the federal budget on foreign aid. When they were asked what the government should spend, the people suggested numbers in the range of 5-8% of the budget. This is simply not based on the truth, as in reality the American government spends less than 1% of the federal budget on foreign aid. And this is only one of the issue in which it has proven to be important that a more thorough civics program should exist in schools. If the people do not know what they are talking about, both the media and the candidates that are running for office can use this to their advantage – by for example criticizing their opponent if they do not want to cut foreign aid – to win elections. This only makes elections less based on the actual policies and more based on who can convince the most people to vote for them no matter what is the truth, something which I believe is simply wrong.
1. Lotte Elfering says:
  
  October 12, 2017 at 12:36 pm
  
  Source:
  
  Singer, Peter. “One Community.” In Peter Singer, One World. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002, 150-195.
Marcin Jerzewski says:

October 23, 2017 at 2:09 pm

The part of your blog post which I found most captivating and important is your mention of the inefficacy of the current model of civic education. I genuinely believe that educational institutions constitute some of the most important agents of political socialization; as an illustration, the daily declamations of the pledge of allegiance (by children who are significantly more likely to take messages and representations of the world at face value) surely reinforce the view of the world where duty to the nation is a great virtue. Consequently, your piece motivated me to investigate this issue further, and so I decided to peruse the 50-state comparison of civic education policies, produced by the Education Commission of the States. The most important findings of the report include the mention that, “More than half of the states require some form of civic education assessment,” and that, “The majority of states do not include civics, social studies or citizenship in their education accountability systems.” I find it disenchanting that there exists such a discrepancy in standards of teaching civics to students across the United States. I believe that a certain degree of proficiency in civics should be a condition of graduation from high school. Particularly secondary institutions have an important pedagogical role to fulfil – they bring up the subsequent generations of American citizens. If we want young Americans to act upon their sense of duty to the nation, instilled to them in schools, we also need to teach them the skills about navigating the political milieu of the contemporary United States.

The report can be downloaded from here: https://www.ecs.org/ec-content/uploads/Companion_Report_-_50-State_Comparison_-_Civic_Education.pdf

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