Our youth are woefully ignorant?

by David Safier

Yesterday I wrote about an online, 33 question Civics Quiz you can take to see how much you know about general U.S. civics and history.

Today I saw a breakdown of scores by age on Kevin Drum's blog.

I don't want to read too much into this. It's not a good random sample by any stretch of the imagination. But if you notice, the 18 to 24 year olds got more-or-less the same scores as everyone else.

Young people have one advantage: their schooling is still fresh in their minds, so there's more chance they'll remember what they learned. But older people have the far greater advantage of the opportunity to see the world, including government, in action over years of adulthood and learning from what they've seen.

It looks like our youth aren't as ignorant as many people claim. Or maybe the bulk of our population is woefully ignorant about the functionings of government and the details of our history, including the youth. Either way, the perpetual moaning about "these kids nowadays" isn't backed up by these results.

Note: Conservative columnist Kathleen Parker, who I've given a lot of positive attention to lately, chimes in on this quiz in today's column. I'm afraid, the election over, she's back to her old ways. First, she calls people "stupid" for their lack of civics knowledge. No, they may be ignorant and uninformed, but a civics test is not an intelligence test. People aren't smarter because they know stuff. She also blames the low scores for the lack of Civics courses in today's schools. She obviously hasn't looked at the age breakdown above. People 45 and up most probably took Civics in high school, and it didn't seem to make much difference. Parker is looking for easy answers to complex problems.

Comments

[flounder]

That test is garbage. The people who put it out are primo A-1 super right wingers with an agenda. Read a couple of their bios.
Go read the questions again (and the answers). Is Roosevelt and the potential expansion of Supreme Court a question you would ask, as opposed to say Brown vs. Board of Education, unless you were trying to paint FDR in a bad light? And as far as womens' rights, did you notice that they make it a point to rip on NOW as absolutists? And don't the economic theory questions seem to come from a rather right leaning reading of economic theory? Don't give these people any more advertising.

[Zelph]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/11/24/19759/556/144/665985

[David]

Kevin Drum reports that the random sample of 2,508 test takers was conducted over the phone, and not over the Internet.

I just took the test and the result screen reports that the average for November was 77.9% correct.

That's a wide gap. I know that I am a visual learner, and not an auditory one, and would probably have done worse if the test was conducted over the phone and only heard, and not seen, the questions and answers.