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For quick access to key findings click on numbers listed below.
Key Findings- (1)(2)(3)
Methodology
White Paper 1- Executive Summary and Key Findings
High school students' attitudes about the First Amendment in general and the Freedom of the Press in particular are important because each generation of students helps define what freedom means in our society. Issued in February of 2005, The Future of the First Amendment report, sponsored by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, found that high school students across America lack basic levels of knowledge and appreciation for the First Amendment.
We know, however, that the United States is a large and diverse nation, featuring many regional, cultural and political differences that might give rise to varying levels of student support for the First Amendment. The large national sample of more than 112,000 students facilitates our ability to examine these possible sub-group differences. For example, the last two presidential elections revealed sharp regional differences in the American political landscape among the voting public. Yet many student opinions about the First Amendment and the freedom of the press tend to stay remarkably consistent across these otherwise widely accepted political fault lines.
Specifically, students from different geographic regions throughout the country tend to exhibit minor differences in their attitudes about the First Amendment in general. Students from so-called ?red states? (in which electoral college votes went to the Republican, President George W. Bush in the 2004 election) and students from ?blue states? (electoral college votes going to the Democrat, Sen. John Kerry) are even less likely to divide on First Amendment issues, although they did demonstrate different levels of commitment to putting media offerings in their schools. By contrast, significant differences were noticeable when comparing the attitudes and experiences of students from suburban communities to those from rural and urban communities.
Most striking, the comparatively greater resources available to suburban students in the United States do not tend to translate into a greater appreciation and tolerance for the First Amendment by these students. Indeed, in some cases urban and rural students tend to be much more enlightened on First Amendment issues than their suburban counterparts.
Here are some of the important findings from the Knight study with respect to these divisions:
Urban students (86 percent) were more likely than suburban students (81 percent) or rural students (82 percent) to think people should be allowed to express unpopular opinions. |
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Urban and rural students (18 percent) were more likely than suburban students (14 percent) to agree that people should be allowed to burn the American flag as a means of political protest. |
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| Suburban students are somewhat less tolerant despite the fact that their high schools usually have more media-related resources – 82 percent of suburban schools offer student newspapers as an activity, as compared with just 68 percent of rural schools and 77 percent of urban schools. |
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| There exists no difference at all in support from students in red states and blue states concerning whether they agree that the First Amendment goes too far (34 percent each), or whether they think the press in America has too much freedom (32 percent each). |
For quick access to key findings click on one of the links listed below.
1. High School Students' Attitudes about First Amendment Freedoms
2. Influences on High School Students' Attitudes about the First Amendment
3. High School Media Offerings - Curricular and Extracurricular
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| J-IDEAS is funded in part by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation's High School Initiative and Ball State University. |
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