State Of The Nation’s Youth: Individually Optimistic, Collectively Not So Much
Posted by anastasia on 08-11-2008
This year’s Horatio Alger report on the “State of Our Nation’s Youth,” based on a phone survey of 1,006 students between the ages of 13-19 is out, and paints a relatively optimistic portrait of teens despite the world’s malaise. Some highlights:
- Students are optimistic about their own future and their own abilities, but have grown markedly less optimistic about the country’s future.
- Hope and optimism about the future of the country has declined 22 points in just five years from 75% in 2003 to 53% today. [I would guess this is on par with adult feelings about the future of our country as well]
Still they realize the role the election could play in shaping the future….
- 75% of students say they care who wins the presidential election.
- The top issues for teens?
1. The economy/jobs (34 percent)
2. War in Iraq (31 percent)
3. Environment/global warming (28 percent)
4. Education (25 percent)
5. Health care (16 percent)
6. Terrorism & national security (13 percent)
7. Civil liberties & civil rights (11 percent)
8. Moral values (10 percent)
- The vast majority of students say they are very confident (62%) or fairly confident (31%) about achieving their own goals in life [all that self esteem emphasis obviously paid off]
- What would improve students’ quality of education? The majority of students (38 percent) said more up-to-date technology. Second was better job training. [hello. wake up call to schools, teens want their education to be relevant to their future]
- 30 percent reported having been bullied online (vs. 54 percent offline). And only 16 percent said someone had intentionally posted something mean or hurtful about them on-line. [this reaffirms that it's an issue, but also puts it in perspective]
- They phrased this one in terms of making parents proud, but I wonder if it could also be read as parents putting lots of pressure on teens for good grades: If you came home from school tomorrow and told your parents about an award you received, which would make them more proud? (75 percent said straight As while 18 percent said community service, 5 percent a sports award).
- As for role models? Family’s first at 57 percent (up 10 points from 2005). Entertainers and sports figures are both down from 2005 to 9 percent and 4 percent (entertainers dropped 2 points while sports figures dropped one)
- Time online? We’ve all seen different versions of these stats, but here’s there’s: Students spend a lot of time online, both for entertainment (85%) and for schoolwork (78%)…
You can download the full report here. (.pdf)
Categorized under: Education, Youth Marketing