Comments on: Americans: “Politics? Who Cares.” http://donklephant.com/2007/08/22/americans-politics-who-cares/ Big Teeth. Huge Ass. Surprisingly Reasonable. Mon, 23 Nov 2009 03:05:09 -0800 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: wj http://donklephant.com/2007/08/22/americans-politics-who-cares/comment-page-1/#comment-381021 wj Wed, 22 Aug 2007 19:46:21 +0000 http://donklephant.com/2007/08/22/americans-politics-who-cares/#comment-381021 Simon does have a point in his first paragraph. I certainly wouldn't respond to a poll by calling myself "extremely knowledgeable" about world politics. Even though I have been paying attention for decades, and probably know more about it than 95% of the population. As always with polls, the exact wording of the questions can allow the authors to arrive at just about any conclusion they desire. Writing questions which actually allow meaningful results is much, much harder. Simon does have a point in his first paragraph. I certainly wouldn’t respond to a poll by calling myself “extremely knowledgeable” about world politics. Even though I have been paying attention for decades, and probably know more about it than 95% of the population. As always with polls, the exact wording of the questions can allow the authors to arrive at just about any conclusion they desire. Writing questions which actually allow meaningful results is much, much harder.

]]> By: Simon http://donklephant.com/2007/08/22/americans-politics-who-cares/comment-page-1/#comment-380999 Simon Wed, 22 Aug 2007 16:41:47 +0000 http://donklephant.com/2007/08/22/americans-politics-who-cares/#comment-380999 I guess my immediate reaction is to ask how literally this line is translated: "just three percent of women and 14 percent of men saying they are extremely knowledgeable on world politics." Well, look: I think most people have a sense of modesty, and if you give them a five-point scale ranging from "I know nothing at all about world politics" to "I am extremely knowledgeable about world politics," I think that even those people who have a pretty good grasp are going to demur and hesitate to be so boastful. So I would want to know - in fact, I'd go further: this report is totally meaningless unless we know - what the wording of the question was, what the other options were, and what the numbers were for them. The bottom line is: if a story doesn't link to the raw data, the only safe assumption is that it's making it up. I would say this: my son just started the Seventh Grade last week, and I asked the social studies teacher what they're going to be studying. the far east, apparently - China, Japan and so forth. Well, look, these are students who have been taught next to nothing by the school system about <i>American</i> history, culture and civics. Not to put too fine a point on it, f*ck China! How can you possibly expect them to understand <i>another</i> country if they don't yet have any kind of grounding in their <i>own</i> history? The state of civics education really does worry me - there seems to be such pervasive ignorance of basic civics (not that this report is good evidence for it, even if it alludes to it) that it seems obvious that something is seriously wrong with the way civics is being taught. I guess my immediate reaction is to ask how literally this line is translated: “just three percent of women and 14 percent of men saying they are extremely knowledgeable on world politics.” Well, look: I think most people have a sense of modesty, and if you give them a five-point scale ranging from “I know nothing at all about world politics” to “I am extremely knowledgeable about world politics,” I think that even those people who have a pretty good grasp are going to demur and hesitate to be so boastful. So I would want to know – in fact, I’d go further: this report is totally meaningless unless we know – what the wording of the question was, what the other options were, and what the numbers were for them.

The bottom line is: if a story doesn’t link to the raw data, the only safe assumption is that it’s making it up.

I would say this: my son just started the Seventh Grade last week, and I asked the social studies teacher what they’re going to be studying. the far east, apparently – China, Japan and so forth. Well, look, these are students who have been taught next to nothing by the school system about American history, culture and civics. Not to put too fine a point on it, f*ck China! How can you possibly expect them to understand another country if they don’t yet have any kind of grounding in their own history? The state of civics education really does worry me – there seems to be such pervasive ignorance of basic civics (not that this report is good evidence for it, even if it alludes to it) that it seems obvious that something is seriously wrong with the way civics is being taught.

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