Closer analysis reveals that for many categories of political knowledge, today s high school graduates are roughly equivalent to the high school dropouts of the late 1940s, while today s college graduates are roughly equivalent to the high school graduates of that earlier epoch. There is substantial evidence to support both interpretations, which in any event are complementary rather than competing. T he significance of civic knowledge. Intuitively, it may seem implausible that civic knowledge is central to democratic citizenship. Nonetheless, recent research suggests surprisingly strong links between basic civic information and civic attributes we have good reasons to care about.
Civic knowledge helps citizens understand their interests as individuals and as members of groups.
The more knowledge we have, the better we can understand the impact of public policies on our interests, and the more effectively we can promote our interests in the political process. Unless citizens possess a basic level of civic knowledge especially concerning political institutions and processes it is difficult for them to understand political events or to integrate new information into a meaningful framework. The more knowledge citizens have, the less likely they are to fear new immigrants. General civic knowledge can alter indeed, enlarge our views on specific public issues. For example, the more knowledge citizens have, the less likely they are to fear new immigrants and their impact on the United States.