Objective Week 1: Public Opinion, Political Socialization, and Voter Participation
The question most students will know the answer to is "What is an opinion." Many students will be able to answer said question with real life examples, including how opinions affect behavior. However when asked what public opinion is, and more specifically how it affects the public's actions and government policy, students may have a more difficult time generating an answer. The idea of public opinion and its link to public actions must be answered at the outset for the larger themes of the unit to be relevant to students. The fact is that public opinion is closely tied to public action; more importantly it is tied to political and governmental action, as the public holds the ultimate tool - the ability to vote.
Is the fact that public opinion dictates political action necessarily a bad thing? Some will say that is the true nature of a democracy, and that this is the proper procedure for the system's success. "70% feel that the majority should have say and influence on policy (Janda 2008)." In actuality, however, there seems to be a clear division between public opinion and political action. One example of this is the issue of school prayer. "The Supreme Court has ruled against clergy-led prayers at public school graduations. Yet surveys continually show that a clear majority of Americans (75%) do not agree with that ruling (Miller 1981)."
This begs the question, is the Majoritarian or the Pluralist model the best philosophy for democratic policy? The Majoritarian model has the majority determine policy, whereas the Pluralist model is characterized by many smaller minority groups working together to determine policy. Should the majority of Americans' opinions determine policy or should it be in the hands of many minority interest groups? As these minority groups actually represent slices of the electorate, some would argue for the pluralist model. Every person is divided by many different factors; education, income, region, race, ethnicity, religion and gender are just some of the factors that people use to identify themselves. When one chooses one of these "identities," they are also inadvertently affiliating themselves with a particular political minority. The pluralist model insures that the voices of many are heard and that one voice does not overpower another.
It is important to remember that these individual identities have great political merit. We can trace these characteristics to family, school, communities and/or peers. They form values that will determine an individual's voting behavior and participation in the political system. The United States current bipartisan system treats small minority groups as part of the larger whole - the larger majority. Political agents form their policy based on these different social group's common interests hoping to garner their support and votes.
Identifying individual minorities and incorporating them into a larger whole is not always successful. No matter how much an individual participates, there are times when a true democracy cannot be attained. The Russian political system provides an excellent example. The Russian public is allowed to express their political opinion through voting, but when intimidation and corruption leave only one candidate or choice on a bill, how much of a difference can the public have? Is that considered democratic? Is it democratic that many social groups have not had the right to participate in the so-called democratic system?
Throughout history many groups have been frozen out of the democratic system by denying them the right to vote, in effect silenced their opinions and ability to fight for political change. The two largest groups in American history are African-Americans and women. The disenfranchisement of blacks and women denied two huge social groups their voice. Today these groups are heavily involved in the political process, as evidenced by the landmark 2008 democratic nominees for president.
The 2008 election can be seen as an example of how public acceptance can change the political landscape, but still many voters choose to abstain from the political process because they feel their opinions and voices go unheard. How does the government get them to vote? Does the government even want them to vote? Statistics and trends show that only 42% of Americans vote in non-presidential years and the number increases to 58% during election years (Berry 2008). Political scientists attribute this to lack of voter turn out to an inequity in education; those who are educated vote in higher numbers then those without higher degree.
Strategies
The students will be prompted with the bell ringer, "What is public opinion and how does it affect public action (and in turn government policy)?" After defining this idea, we will discuss whether or not they believe that politicians care about the general publics' opinion. The class will also examine the process by which government policy is directly linked to the opinion of the general electorate. Students will use capitol punishment and school prayer as models to analyze the statistical relationship between public opinion and governmental policy. Students will then explore which philosophical model (majoritarian or pluralist) would be the most just for determining public policy, based on today's differences in public opinion and the political action of the government.
No doubt this discussion will spiral into questions of where/how opinions are formulated, and in order to ascertain students' individual opinions on policy, they will take a personality assessment. Though this personality quiz, students will find out not only where their opinions come from, but also their political socialization, political values, and application of their values into minority/social groups. The quizzes will be collected and students' answers charted and analyzed, allowing students to see that certain values and groups show recognizable trends. The use of spiraling questioning and the personality quiz is an effective method for identifying different values and groups.
To gain a deeper understanding of two minority groups that have been largely marginalized in the history of the United States election process, we will study suffrage rights of African Americans and women. One useful method to study these groups is by comparing graphs of voting numbers and trends from suffrage with data from the inception of voting rights to the present day. Using these graphs and reflecting on the time periods and the events occurring simultaneously, students will be able to understand the connection between public opinion and the concurrent [socioeconomic] environment. From that analysis, students will be able to formulate a prediction of voter turn out of these two social groups in the 2008 presidential election.
Students will also investigate the reasons behind the low voter turn out in the United States, as compared to other western democratic nations. Students will again use graphs and surveys touching on potential causes that might keep certain political social groups out of the voting process. After exploring some of these causes, students will propose ideas to change and improve the percentage of eligible voters who actually vote. Students will be expected to provide an implementation strategy for their plan, predict their expected results, and hypothesize why they expect these results to occur. Students should also come to the realization that perhaps a high voter turnout may not necessarily be a good thing, particularly if said voters are uninformed and/or uneducated on the candidate/issues. Students will expand on these ideas by comparing their findings with current research on the subject.
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