The Crisis of Political Literacy in America
A Call for Civic Consciousness in Parenting
In a society that thrives on the exchange of information and ideas, it is troubling to realize that a significant part of the population lacks basic knowledge about how our government operates. Hamilton Nolan recently wrote a more explicit take on this situation. Last month I wrote about how teaching civics over the past 30 years has been a big game of hot potato with many of our institutions not wanting to and/or not being able to take on the responsibility of imparting necessary lessons about our government and politics to our citizens.
Findings from the Annenberg Public Policy Center reveal that fewer than half of the U.S. adult population can name the three primary branches of government. This alarming fact indicates a broader deficiency in understanding — but it’s just a signal of what people don’t know about the national political landscape.
When considering state and local politics people know even less. This gap in knowledge has consequences, particularly manifesting in voter participation rates. Those who know the least, vote the least and oftentimes believe their participation doesn’t matter. I don’t know any parents who want to raise children to feel ineffective or unaware of the world around them, but in the realm of politics, this is what happens.
Limited Political Knowledge at the National, State, and Local Level
Measuring political knowledge accurately is a complex task. The existing data paints a grim picture: a considerable proportion of the American population struggles with identifying key figures in government and/or understanding the basic processes that govern federal politics. From a shaky grasp on the history of presidency to an inadequate understanding of the roles of individuals such as the Speaker of the House, the knowledge gap is pervasive and concerning. Young people, those who have just left the family home tend to know the least.
Our collective deficit in understanding is even more pronounced for state and local politics. This lack of awareness hampers our ability to understand policies that directly impact our daily lives, such as gun control measures and marijuana regulations. What’s worse, is that our lack of understanding about governmental and political processes makes it exceedingly hard to change policy. Furthermore, disparities in civics educational standards and funding mechanisms across states means that children and adults can find it more or less challenging to grasp the nuances of their local government systems fully depending on what is or is not taught in their local schools.
The Relationship between Political Knowledge and Voter Participation
This lack of political literacy has significant repercussions, particularly evident in the voter turnout among young adults. These results occur across educational backgrounds — even the brightest and most academically committed students that I get to work with oftentimes don’t know how to register to vote, or even when elections happen that they are eligible to weigh in on. Not voting in the first election a new adult can defensively snowball into further disillusionment with the government and overtime greater distance in ones comprehension of and care for the electoral system.
After seeing the spike in youth voter turn out in our COVID-19 2020 election, some states have tried to do more to spur youth registration with mechanisms like automatic registration, pre-registration before turning 18, online registration, and same day registration. Parents can do more by taking an active interest in helping their children understand the processes in their own state. A multi-faceted approach to overcoming the barriers to voter participation is essential for active civic engagement — and we can’t expect this work to be fully done by state government efforts.
We Also Don’t Know the Same Things: Fragmented Media
In addition to not knowing much about government and politics, we also know different things depending on our own media diets. In today’s digital landscape, where media consumption is highly fragmented and personalized, teaching political literacy becomes even more challenging. There is no longer a shared media environment capable of reaching nearly everyone in the ways that were possible 50 years ago. The chasm between the information consumed by different generations is widening, with algorithms tailoring content to individual preferences, creating isolated bubbles of information.
This splicing of online information and entertainment “consumers” also means a splicing of the electoral which can further exacerbate the disconnect between parents and children in understanding and engaging with the political landscape. In order to get a sense of how far apart you might be from your kids in terms of media, try to sit with them for just 10 minutes on any form of social media or YouTube shorts and see what their algorithms feed them — it will probably be quite different from what you’re used to seeing. Knowing that — we have to consciously do more as parents to help prepare our children for citizenship.
Bridging the Gap through Open Communication
To counter these trends, parents must be more willing to engage in open dialogues with their children, to create an environment where discussions about political and governmental topics can occur. We all need the practice, and starting in the home is a safe way to do that sort of work. Encouraging children to think critically and navigate the political sphere with know-how if the first step in igniting can broader change towards a healthier society more invested in the intricacies of governance at both local and national levels.
The Problems and Opportunity of our Underdeveloped Understanding of Politics
The current deficiency in political understanding presents both a challenge and an opportunity. Recognizing the importance of civic knowledge as a part of parenting responsibilities can pave the way for a more informed and engaged populace. The potential ripple effect of such engagement can not only improve our individual understanding as parents but can also contribute to a more robust, active, and eventually responsive democracy as our children grow to value this type of education and engagement.
Data highlighting the gaps in political literacy among the U.S. population should serve as a wake-up call, but in a very hopeful way! It’s not as though we all need to learn how to do advanced mathematics and make sure our kids can too, the task is much much simpler. We all can learn a little more about politics and government, be willing to discuss a little more about both with our children, and in turn create a calmer and more functional governing standard. Things like politics feel worse when we can’t make sense of we got here or how to get to a different place. But nothing in political is a mystery — if you can read, you can figure this stuff out, and the neatest thing that that we are equally eligible to play in politics.
The stakes are high, and the time to act is now. By practicing open communication on things that seem like hard topics and nurturing a culture of civic education, we can hope to bridge this gap, paving the way for a future where a well-informed citizenry actively participates in shaping the nation’s destiny.
