The Persuadable Public
Howell, William; West, Martin, Peterson, Paul
Education Next, Fall 2009, v9, #4, online edition, 10p
"What do Americans think about their schools? More important, perhaps, what would it take to change their minds? Can a president at the peak of his popularity convince people to rethink their positions on specific education reforms? [...] In a series of survey experiments, we find a substantial share of the public
willing to reconsider its policy prescriptions for public schools. But this
responsiveness is not uniform: presidential appeals are more persuasive to
fellow partisans than to those who identify with the opposition party,
research findings have the greatest impact when an issue remains unsettled,
and learning basic facts has the biggest impact when those facts are
not well known. None of this comes as a surprise, until one considers how stable aggregate public opinion has been over time."
William G. Howell is Sydney Stein Professor of American Politics at the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago. Paul E. Peterson is Professor of government at Harvard University, Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, and Editor-in-Chief of Education Next. Martin R. West is Assistant Professor of education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and Executive Editor of Education Next.
Go to the article at:
http://educationnext.org/files/fall09-persuadable-public.pdf
E3/05-09, Posted December 22, 2009
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