Alarge national survey of young americans recently released by circle shows young obama and romney voters had strikingly similar levels of political knowledge. the survey also shows a clear relationship between respondents’ high school civics education experiences and their knowledge of campaign issues and political participation in the 2012 presidential election. however, taking high school civics had little or no relationship with young adults’ choice between barack obama and mitt romney."young people who recalled experiencing more high-quality civic education practices in schools were more likely to vote, to form political opinions, to know campaign issues, and to know general facts about the us political system," said peter levine, director of circle. "civics education was not related to partisanship or choice of candidate. these results should allay political concerns about civic education being taught in schools."circle’s poll of 4,483 young americans, ages 18-24, was conducted from the day after the election until december 21. as part of the poll, respondents were asked to choose one issue of particular interest to them. they were then asked to express their own opinion on this issue and to answer two factual questions about where president obama and governor romney stood.
major findings:
a) on some topics, young people were informed. more than three in four young voters could correctly answer at least one factual question about the candidates’ position on a campaign issue that they had chosen as important. and on questions about the structure of the us government, they performed as well or better than older adults who have been asked similar questions in other polls.
b) on other topics, most young people were misinformed. for instance, a majority (51.2%) believed that the federal government spends more on foreign aid than on social security, when in fact social security costs about 20 times more. but again, older adults have also been found to be widely misinformed on the same topics.
c) about one quarter of young voters were poorly informed about the campaign’s issues, and young people who did not vote were generally uninformed.
d) young people who recalled high-quality civic education experiences in school were more likely to vote, to form political opinions, to know campaign issues, and to know general facts about the us political system. that does not mean that civics causes higher turnout and more knowledge, because students who experience better civics may also have other advantages in their schools and communities. but the correlations are very strong and at least demonstrate that active and informed citizens tend to be people who had good civic education.