Activism is demanding enough, so a big social science project is probably the last thing on your mind. This blog won't make anyone into a social science researcher anyway. The point here is to teach activists, whether working in a nonprofit or not, read and use social science effectively and correctly. I'll focus on sociology, because that's my background.
Social Science and Activism
If you know anything about evaluation, performance management or doing survey research this blog might be useful. It will be of most use to consumers of social science data like Gallup and Pew Research polls and the results of peer-reviewed social science research.
The way you frame an issue or challenge is important. This often goes to the question of why a problem exists. Why is there bullying in schools? It could be a lack of empathy or a small subset of kids with serious emotional problems or one of those things and one or two others. Try to find research from a reputable source.
Too often, people jump on a diagnosis of the problem and a solution, but the solution was invented by other people who don't know what they are doing. Their diagnosis could be based in ideology - on what there philosophy or worldview requires them to believe - rather than on data.
This is a huge drain on resources in some issue areas. Economic development work driven either by Marxism or by free-market libertarian types can frame the problem in different ways, but wrong ways. Libertarians are automatically biased toward looking at how market forces can be used to promote economic development in the city. Activists rooted in Marxism will say the problem exists because the economic elites have basically taken resources from the workers.
Staying on Top with Data
Tracking results is important. How effective are your programs? If nothing else, you need to know because grant making organizations and major donors are going to ask. Before you even get a grant you will almost certainly need to have some idea of how you will measure your impact.
This may seem basic to sum, but no where to get information on trends that are relevant to your cause. Pay attention to polls from Gallup and Pew, or at least check what the publish online to see if it can be of use. If you are a gun control organization, even a small one, you really need to know where to get reliable data on gun violence and gun ownership and public attitudes toward guns.
Using secondary data in planning, social marketing and cause marketing, social media posting, advocacy, fundraising materials. Look for survey data, government statistics, and so on. You probably do that. Just be sure to use reliable sources that are widely trusted, versus sources that are feminist, socialist, libertarian or whatever. We all know you are committed to feminism, socialism, libertarianism and whatever else. To the extent that we care about data at all, we want know that your appeal is rooted in trustworthy data.
Concept R&D
This is an old idea from creativity guru Edward De Bono. His version of the idea involved looking for a concept employed in one domain of business and looking at how that concept could be used in another. For example, there is layaway for consumer goods. Could you buy education on a layaway plan? Perhaps? I don't know how you would actually make installments on training before actually getting the training, but never mind.
The point here is to pay attention to concepts that come in social science research. You can even pick them out from journal articles and Wikipedia articles on social theories. Write down challenges you want to tackle, or problems you might like to solve.
Become an Armchair Sociologist
The key to being a really good activist is...impossible to identify. There isn't one thing. If you have resources but lack passion, you might not get very far. If you have passion but lack knowledge, you will waste a huge amount of time and money, and perhaps create a worse problem than you tried to solve. The Law of Unintended Consequences cannot be suspended by having good intentions. I hope this cursory overview of how and why to blend social science and activism has been thought provoking.
Feel free to leave a comment below.
Tuesday, January 12, 2016
Monday, October 14, 2013
Will Comet ISON or Nibiru or Wormwood or all three destroy the world?
Well, no, That is just paranoid nonsense. Comet ISON is too small and won't hit the earth this time. Nibiru doesn't exist or has not been proven. Wormwood is just a world from the Bible. If these things are not going to destroy the world, are they going to provide the excuse for some nefarious action by the United States government - FEMA camps, martial law, gun confiscation, et cetera?
You can probably guess what my opinion is, just by reading between the lines of that first paragraph. This post focuses on some sociological thoughts on the nature of these sorts of apocalyptic conspiracies. The types of people who both promote these ideas and take them seriously could tell us something about the nature of the modern world. That's a wild guess, but I will flesh things out presently.
Now, if you have surfed around on YouTube or just Googled "Comet ISON" you might have come up with some type of conspiracy. The basis of the conspiracy seems to be that "they" are hiding the truth. Those sinister pronouns! Always hiding things from people! Actually, the conspiracy refers to the United States government, or just NASA, or perhaps to multiple agencies.
What sort of person takes this conspiracy talk seriously? I don't mean to suggest the believers are insane or stupid. I want to know what social and economic characteristics do believers share that sets the group apart from the general public. And I want to know if my hypothesis is correct.
My proposed account of what's going on works like this: People are marginalized, not getting by in wider society. These people may not be well educated or have much of a social network to relate to. The believers feel bad about their place in the world. Latching onto a conspiracy like the Comet ISON story gives them a sense of being in on something special. And, unlike you, they are wise enough to see through the cover up and official denials.
Why do some folks insist on peddling these conspiracies? Money, power, and true confusion over reality might be all that is called for.
The same process or mechanism works with other conspiracies too. I'll try to explain in more detail in future posts, unless the NSA comes for me.
You can probably guess what my opinion is, just by reading between the lines of that first paragraph. This post focuses on some sociological thoughts on the nature of these sorts of apocalyptic conspiracies. The types of people who both promote these ideas and take them seriously could tell us something about the nature of the modern world. That's a wild guess, but I will flesh things out presently.
Now, if you have surfed around on YouTube or just Googled "Comet ISON" you might have come up with some type of conspiracy. The basis of the conspiracy seems to be that "they" are hiding the truth. Those sinister pronouns! Always hiding things from people! Actually, the conspiracy refers to the United States government, or just NASA, or perhaps to multiple agencies.
What sort of person takes this conspiracy talk seriously? I don't mean to suggest the believers are insane or stupid. I want to know what social and economic characteristics do believers share that sets the group apart from the general public. And I want to know if my hypothesis is correct.
My proposed account of what's going on works like this: People are marginalized, not getting by in wider society. These people may not be well educated or have much of a social network to relate to. The believers feel bad about their place in the world. Latching onto a conspiracy like the Comet ISON story gives them a sense of being in on something special. And, unlike you, they are wise enough to see through the cover up and official denials.
Why do some folks insist on peddling these conspiracies? Money, power, and true confusion over reality might be all that is called for.
The same process or mechanism works with other conspiracies too. I'll try to explain in more detail in future posts, unless the NSA comes for me.
Wednesday, July 3, 2013
Who cares about carbon pollution?
Is carbon pollution really a form of pollution? President Obama's remarks about the Keystone Pipeline and carbon pollution touched off some thoughts about climate change, politics, and environmental activism. The constant references to carbon pollution annoy me. This post explains why, and why you as an activist should care.
Carbon Pollution is not Pollution
First of all, there is a major factual error here - Carbon is not a pollutant unless it is introduced into the air in truly extraordinary amounts. Forest fires and volcanic eruptions dump lots of carbon-rich soot and ash into the air over a short period of time. We all know that sort of event is bad news indeed. But the carbon atoms themselves don't do anything in everyday life.
A pollution problem develops when carbon, in the form of methane or carbon dioxide starts to build up in the air. These greenhouse gases are what is really being talked about when President Obama and others talk about carbon pollution. Why do they oversimplify? I know what Obama's opponents will say - Obama voters are too stupid to understand what greenhouse gases are.
Simplification is a reasonable way to go sometimes. An oversimplification that introduces an actual error into your thinking is not reasonable. It is an error to think or say that carbon pollution is a major contributor to global warming.
Is carbon pollution just a shorthand way of expressing the idea that greenhouse gases contribute to climate change? Yes it really is. That's hard to argue with. What I don't like is the introduction of scientific inaccuracy to discussions of the subject.
The Correct Use of Shorthand
The shorthand might be misunderstood or even taken as a statement of fact over time: "Carbon is dust you know. You can't even see carbon coming out of tailpipes and stuff. How can carbon pollution be causing so much trouble. Environmentalists are full of it. Must be."
Shorthand leads to misunderstanding in other ways. If your message contains shorthand for some health concern, social impact, or environmental risk I, being new to the subject, might not understand. Now, your pithy headline contains what I see as a logical or factual error. Do you think I am going to study your message closely after that?
"Gun control is people control." - No. What does "people control" even mean? Do you mean that regulations on the ownership of firearms represent a form of oppression? That just sounds loopy and irrational.
"Carbon Pollution Threatens Us All" - No. Greenhouse gas emissions are a threat. Carbon is a non-metallic element, one of the most common elements in the universe.
"Abortion - Hitler Would Have Loved It" - Just absurd. Is this invocation of Hitler supposed to make me hate abortion because "Hitler" is a shorthand for horrible, hateful social policies that no sane person would support? If so, then this slogan fails. To a sensible person, that Hitler liked abortion, or dogs, or German beer is completely irrelevant.
"Hitler was a vegetarian. Do you want to be like Hitler?" Now I'm just fooling around.
So, in conclusion, exercise extreme care in using shorthand to get your point across. A related tip would be to check the conclusions that might be drawn from using shorthand in headlines, taglines, subheadings, slogans or the body of an article. Take a second look at the above examples and see what you get out of them, and I hope you will that writing about "carbon pollution" should be done with caution.
Carbon Pollution is not Pollution
First of all, there is a major factual error here - Carbon is not a pollutant unless it is introduced into the air in truly extraordinary amounts. Forest fires and volcanic eruptions dump lots of carbon-rich soot and ash into the air over a short period of time. We all know that sort of event is bad news indeed. But the carbon atoms themselves don't do anything in everyday life.
A pollution problem develops when carbon, in the form of methane or carbon dioxide starts to build up in the air. These greenhouse gases are what is really being talked about when President Obama and others talk about carbon pollution. Why do they oversimplify? I know what Obama's opponents will say - Obama voters are too stupid to understand what greenhouse gases are.
Simplification is a reasonable way to go sometimes. An oversimplification that introduces an actual error into your thinking is not reasonable. It is an error to think or say that carbon pollution is a major contributor to global warming.
Is carbon pollution just a shorthand way of expressing the idea that greenhouse gases contribute to climate change? Yes it really is. That's hard to argue with. What I don't like is the introduction of scientific inaccuracy to discussions of the subject.
The Correct Use of Shorthand
The shorthand might be misunderstood or even taken as a statement of fact over time: "Carbon is dust you know. You can't even see carbon coming out of tailpipes and stuff. How can carbon pollution be causing so much trouble. Environmentalists are full of it. Must be."
Shorthand leads to misunderstanding in other ways. If your message contains shorthand for some health concern, social impact, or environmental risk I, being new to the subject, might not understand. Now, your pithy headline contains what I see as a logical or factual error. Do you think I am going to study your message closely after that?
"Gun control is people control." - No. What does "people control" even mean? Do you mean that regulations on the ownership of firearms represent a form of oppression? That just sounds loopy and irrational.
"Carbon Pollution Threatens Us All" - No. Greenhouse gas emissions are a threat. Carbon is a non-metallic element, one of the most common elements in the universe.
"Abortion - Hitler Would Have Loved It" - Just absurd. Is this invocation of Hitler supposed to make me hate abortion because "Hitler" is a shorthand for horrible, hateful social policies that no sane person would support? If so, then this slogan fails. To a sensible person, that Hitler liked abortion, or dogs, or German beer is completely irrelevant.
"Hitler was a vegetarian. Do you want to be like Hitler?" Now I'm just fooling around.
So, in conclusion, exercise extreme care in using shorthand to get your point across. A related tip would be to check the conclusions that might be drawn from using shorthand in headlines, taglines, subheadings, slogans or the body of an article. Take a second look at the above examples and see what you get out of them, and I hope you will that writing about "carbon pollution" should be done with caution.
Thursday, May 9, 2013
Thinking About Guns Like a Sociologist
Yes, that might be my dumbest title ever, but it does reflect my change in focus. The place I was blogging for, Film Annex, decided to take a break from blogging for a time, so no more posts about education and social change in Afghanistan. For now. On to gun control.
The next few posts will introduce some tools that activists can use to make their efforts to persuade and inform a bit more effective. In my blog Building Better Nonprofits, I sometimes describe brainstorming tools.
Gun control is still in the news. There are dedicated activists on both sides of the issue, with the Brady Center and the National Rifle Association (NRA) being the big players. Well, the mainstream media outlets tend to come down on the anti-gun side of the debate, if you believe the more paranoid opponents of gun control. Whether there is something to that claim is a matter for sociological investigation - Are media stories systematically biased for or against gun control and how would you know?
Statistics on gun control get bandied about quite a bit. This post will not repeat any of those statistics, but future posts will. This post just offers a few general observations about how to use sociological thinking when confronted with statistics on gun violence, gun control, and related matters.
States with concealed carry laws tend to have lower violent crime rates than states that do not require concealed carry. Is this true? The statistics I promised not to use will not reveal the answer really. Here is why? We are only looking at an association between two things - whether you are legally allowed to carry a concealed firearm in the state and the rate of violent crime. Other factors need to be considered before any real conclusions can be drawn. Do you know what I'm thinking of? Consider the possibilities for a moment before reading on.
So, here are some other factors that could affect the "relationship" I noted above:
1. There is not much you can really learn from a snapshot of the data. Was crime going down or up over a number of years, and in what states? When did THOSE states pass laws allowing concealed carry.
2. What is the poverty rate? Poverty is often associated with crime and other socially undesirable behaviors.
3. What percentage of the population is between, oh, 16 and 35, and male? I think that is the most crime-prone segment of the population.
4. Has the 16-34 male population been increasing or decreasing?
5. And this should be obvious - How many people are actually carrying? The rate, say 1 per 148 people, is even more important but I know most people don't jump right to thinking of rates and percentages.
6. What is the overall rate of gun ownership? Has it been going up or down? Those two questions probably crossed your mind as well.
Just as an aside, gun ownership is growing and violent crime in the United States has plummeted over the past 20 years. Is there a connection there? After reading this post I hope you aren't too quick to offer an answer.
Gun-related statistics can be used to say just about anything. Right? More on that topic next time...complete with numbers this time!
The next few posts will introduce some tools that activists can use to make their efforts to persuade and inform a bit more effective. In my blog Building Better Nonprofits, I sometimes describe brainstorming tools.
Gun control is still in the news. There are dedicated activists on both sides of the issue, with the Brady Center and the National Rifle Association (NRA) being the big players. Well, the mainstream media outlets tend to come down on the anti-gun side of the debate, if you believe the more paranoid opponents of gun control. Whether there is something to that claim is a matter for sociological investigation - Are media stories systematically biased for or against gun control and how would you know?
Statistics on gun control get bandied about quite a bit. This post will not repeat any of those statistics, but future posts will. This post just offers a few general observations about how to use sociological thinking when confronted with statistics on gun violence, gun control, and related matters.
States with concealed carry laws tend to have lower violent crime rates than states that do not require concealed carry. Is this true? The statistics I promised not to use will not reveal the answer really. Here is why? We are only looking at an association between two things - whether you are legally allowed to carry a concealed firearm in the state and the rate of violent crime. Other factors need to be considered before any real conclusions can be drawn. Do you know what I'm thinking of? Consider the possibilities for a moment before reading on.
So, here are some other factors that could affect the "relationship" I noted above:
1. There is not much you can really learn from a snapshot of the data. Was crime going down or up over a number of years, and in what states? When did THOSE states pass laws allowing concealed carry.
2. What is the poverty rate? Poverty is often associated with crime and other socially undesirable behaviors.
3. What percentage of the population is between, oh, 16 and 35, and male? I think that is the most crime-prone segment of the population.
4. Has the 16-34 male population been increasing or decreasing?
5. And this should be obvious - How many people are actually carrying? The rate, say 1 per 148 people, is even more important but I know most people don't jump right to thinking of rates and percentages.
6. What is the overall rate of gun ownership? Has it been going up or down? Those two questions probably crossed your mind as well.
Just as an aside, gun ownership is growing and violent crime in the United States has plummeted over the past 20 years. Is there a connection there? After reading this post I hope you aren't too quick to offer an answer.
Gun-related statistics can be used to say just about anything. Right? More on that topic next time...complete with numbers this time!
Friday, March 29, 2013
Adult Education in Afghanistan: A Social Change Opportunity
This is probably going to be my last entry on education in Afghanistan that targets adults in general. My next few posts will focus on education initiatives focused on women. Last time I described the thousands of adult education centers and some of the specific adult education programs that serve Afghans. This post is about the practical benefits for citizens, local businesses, and foreign businesses.
Education for adults should yield many practical benefits over the next few years. Higher education is a special case of that of course. If the university graduates don’t find enough jobs available, there better be resources available for them to create their own businesses or nonprofits. Otherwise, there is a huge waste of human resources going on.
(It would be interesting to read evaluation reports that describe the impacts of those adult education programs. I don't know of any publicly available evaluations.)
What about adults who are not university students? How can programs for them contribute to faster development in Afghanistan? Consider these benefits:
1. Better business management/decision making – Being able to read market reports and similar information helps. Business math helps you understand how much you are spending relative to how much you are making. It helps identify whether investments make sense based on the potential future returns.
2. New job opportunities – Many jobs are going to be closed to illiterate people. Many jobs are going to be closed to people who lack some fundamental business and tech skills.
3. Improvement in government – Literacy and numeracy contribute to understanding the issues and the arguments put forth by candidates. Adults are able to better digest information for themselves. I fear that lots of information gets filtered through mullahs, imams, and village elders who may be either hopelessly biased or just not too reliable.
Maybe social media and the Internet can help advertisers, both businesses and nonprofits, communicate more effectively to a literate population. Promoting behavior changes, or simply presenting an advertising message are two things that work online. Even if there is no Internet communication involved, literate people are going to be easier to reach and persuade with a marketing message.
Naturally, Afghanistan will benefit if there are more gainfully employed people and more small businesses generating taxable revenues. So, what are the best ways to pay for the educational efforts that will produce that taxable revenue in the future? Aside from grants and foreign (government) investment, there are several possibilities.
Perhaps adult education could be supported by selling information about the learners. Aside from the obvious demographic data like gender and age and occupation, it might be valuable to know about the person’s tastes or aspirations. The information on a given city or province could be aggregated to help businesses, nonprofits, and governments answer various questions: Is there a viable market for smart phones in Herat?
Collecting market information might not be viable as a way to fund a startup, but maybe after the education business gets started there would be enough useful information to sell. As a start-up, it would be necessary to have some revenue coming in at first, from channels that are known to work. That truth does suggest some creative questions:
Likewise, Internet-based adult education offers opportunities to learn more about people in Afghanistan. What are different types of business owners buying or talking about buying? What needs are currently unmet? This information can be gathered now, but might be highly biased by the few adults who have reliable access to the Internet, most likely through their university or a local Internet café.
To learn more about education and economic development in Afghanistan, check out my Web channel for other blog posts and videos.
Education for adults should yield many practical benefits over the next few years. Higher education is a special case of that of course. If the university graduates don’t find enough jobs available, there better be resources available for them to create their own businesses or nonprofits. Otherwise, there is a huge waste of human resources going on.
(It would be interesting to read evaluation reports that describe the impacts of those adult education programs. I don't know of any publicly available evaluations.)
What about adults who are not university students? How can programs for them contribute to faster development in Afghanistan? Consider these benefits:
1. Better business management/decision making – Being able to read market reports and similar information helps. Business math helps you understand how much you are spending relative to how much you are making. It helps identify whether investments make sense based on the potential future returns.
2. New job opportunities – Many jobs are going to be closed to illiterate people. Many jobs are going to be closed to people who lack some fundamental business and tech skills.
3. Improvement in government – Literacy and numeracy contribute to understanding the issues and the arguments put forth by candidates. Adults are able to better digest information for themselves. I fear that lots of information gets filtered through mullahs, imams, and village elders who may be either hopelessly biased or just not too reliable.
Maybe social media and the Internet can help advertisers, both businesses and nonprofits, communicate more effectively to a literate population. Promoting behavior changes, or simply presenting an advertising message are two things that work online. Even if there is no Internet communication involved, literate people are going to be easier to reach and persuade with a marketing message.
Naturally, Afghanistan will benefit if there are more gainfully employed people and more small businesses generating taxable revenues. So, what are the best ways to pay for the educational efforts that will produce that taxable revenue in the future? Aside from grants and foreign (government) investment, there are several possibilities.
Perhaps adult education could be supported by selling information about the learners. Aside from the obvious demographic data like gender and age and occupation, it might be valuable to know about the person’s tastes or aspirations. The information on a given city or province could be aggregated to help businesses, nonprofits, and governments answer various questions: Is there a viable market for smart phones in Herat?
Collecting market information might not be viable as a way to fund a startup, but maybe after the education business gets started there would be enough useful information to sell. As a start-up, it would be necessary to have some revenue coming in at first, from channels that are known to work. That truth does suggest some creative questions:
- Could advertising be put on the PCs in the training center?
- Could a reputable area business sponsor printing of some learning materials, in exchange for being able to put a small advertisement in the back? This works in the West, so why not in Afghanistan?
Likewise, Internet-based adult education offers opportunities to learn more about people in Afghanistan. What are different types of business owners buying or talking about buying? What needs are currently unmet? This information can be gathered now, but might be highly biased by the few adults who have reliable access to the Internet, most likely through their university or a local Internet café.
To learn more about education and economic development in Afghanistan, check out my Web channel for other blog posts and videos.
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Adult Education and Development in Afghanistan
(In case the following is a bit confusing...allow me to explain. The bulk of these posts on Afghanistan will deal with development and education in Afghanistan. Those are sociological subjects of study, of course, and education and development projects offer opportunities to promote social change.
Increasing educational opportunities for women in Afghanistan is one obvious example of promoting social change. Sociological work relevant to social movements, economic life, institutions, and the diffusion of innovations and just some basic thinking from a sociological perspective will be useful. More details in future posts
- End of sidebar)
Last time I wrote about adult education and opportunities in Afghanistan in a broad way. This time I want to say a few things about what’s being done today to educate Afghanistan’s adults, with some reference to women in particular. The point is to indicate where opportunities might exist for enterprising non-profits, and businesses of course.
To learn more about education and economic development in Afghanistan, check out my Web channel for other blog posts and videos.
Increasing educational opportunities for women in Afghanistan is one obvious example of promoting social change. Sociological work relevant to social movements, economic life, institutions, and the diffusion of innovations and just some basic thinking from a sociological perspective will be useful. More details in future posts
- End of sidebar)
Last time I wrote about adult education and opportunities in Afghanistan in a broad way. This time I want to say a few things about what’s being done today to educate Afghanistan’s adults, with some reference to women in particular. The point is to indicate where opportunities might exist for enterprising non-profits, and businesses of course.
There are a number of players in the adult
literacy field in Afghanistan. The Afghan Ministry of Education is one of them.
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) either has run
or is running a number of adult literacy programs, including the following:
1. Business development services
2. Training and materials for women who want to
work at home
3. Training for farmers on how to improve quality
and productivity
4. Teacher training
5. Education in how to grow different crops
Adult literacy centers have been popping up all
across the country. There are now centers in 20 provinces. The number of
learning centers has grown from 1,100 a few years ago to over 6,800 today.
Now, that list of USAID programs offers some
ideas of where to look for opportunities. What areas are not well served by
organization’s offering farmer training or business development services? Are
there opportunities in those locations for Afghan entrepreneurs or even for
foreign corporations? I think most of rural Afghanistan is still too dangerous
for most foreign investors’ tastes. However, the provincial capitals should still
offer legitimate opportunities.
The current state of adult education in
Afghanistan raises some marketing questions. How many adults are not within 10 miles of one of those
adult literacy centers? How many teachers, would-be teachers, and
entrepreneurial farmers are waiting for training? How could that training be
best delivered to them? Would a business or a small and nimble NGO be able to
fill in one of those gaps in at least one location? Yes of course.
The means of delivering adult education as a
business or as a social venture can be changed too. Having a physical classroom
is obviously going to be required in many cases. The nation’s infrastructure
simply will not support online learning nationwide. However, in areas with Internet
connections and reliable electricity supplies, online learning options exist. Training
for a teaching certificate could be done online. Information and lessons
relevant to public health and entrepreneurship could be distributed online.
Mobile applications may have some educational
value, though I don’t think there are many smart phones in Afghanistan yet. Maybe
that’s not true. Maybe market penetration is enough in certain segments of the
population for mobile apps to have some value anyway. To learn more about education and economic development in Afghanistan, check out my Web channel for other blog posts and videos.
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
Education in Afghanistan
This is to be the first of a series of essays on education, economic development, and women's issues in Afghanistan.
Let's start by diving into some statistics on education and the economy in Afghanistan. These numbers will give some sense of how far the country needs to go to become prosperous.
The literacy rate in Afghanistan is about 28% (12% for women).
The unemployment rate was 35% in 2009 and the poverty rate was 36%, according to the World Factbook.
In 2011, there were an estimated 8.2 million students in a country with a population of 26 million.
From 2005 to 2012 the attendance rate at primary school was about 66% for boys and 44% for girls. Secondary school attendance was an even lower 18% for boys and 6% for girls.
I guess the sociologist in me insisted that those statistics be put out there, to offer some context for discussions of what's being done to improve the economic prospects for Afghanistan's citizens. Those school attendance rates and literacy rates suggest just how big the challenge really is.
While school attendance has climbed, dramatically so for girls, literacy and general education in Afghanistan are still far behind where they need to be for the country to prosper. In particular, literacy and some basic skills like arithmetic and computer literacy are keys to individual prosperity and for economic progress. Computer skills, basic math skills, and literacy are no longer optional for anyone wishing to make his or her way in the world.
Those truths are quite clear to decision makers in the Afghan government in international NGOs, and in businesses like Film Annex. The private not-for-profit American University opened a campus in Kabul in 2009. UNICEF and USAID are actively building or rebuilding schools and community centers.
Businesses are using social media, advertising, and computers to set up schools and computer labs. More detail on how these programs are working will be coming in future posts. I'll also talk about Film Annex efforts to use business thinking to promote education and economic development in Afghanistan.
I've worked on anti-poverty activism before, so I will try to bring some of what I learned to this series of posts. My background in sociology will come through in the posts, though not in a pedantic way. I hope.
Let's start by diving into some statistics on education and the economy in Afghanistan. These numbers will give some sense of how far the country needs to go to become prosperous.
The literacy rate in Afghanistan is about 28% (12% for women).
The unemployment rate was 35% in 2009 and the poverty rate was 36%, according to the World Factbook.
In 2011, there were an estimated 8.2 million students in a country with a population of 26 million.
From 2005 to 2012 the attendance rate at primary school was about 66% for boys and 44% for girls. Secondary school attendance was an even lower 18% for boys and 6% for girls.
I guess the sociologist in me insisted that those statistics be put out there, to offer some context for discussions of what's being done to improve the economic prospects for Afghanistan's citizens. Those school attendance rates and literacy rates suggest just how big the challenge really is.
While school attendance has climbed, dramatically so for girls, literacy and general education in Afghanistan are still far behind where they need to be for the country to prosper. In particular, literacy and some basic skills like arithmetic and computer literacy are keys to individual prosperity and for economic progress. Computer skills, basic math skills, and literacy are no longer optional for anyone wishing to make his or her way in the world.
Those truths are quite clear to decision makers in the Afghan government in international NGOs, and in businesses like Film Annex. The private not-for-profit American University opened a campus in Kabul in 2009. UNICEF and USAID are actively building or rebuilding schools and community centers.
Businesses are using social media, advertising, and computers to set up schools and computer labs. More detail on how these programs are working will be coming in future posts. I'll also talk about Film Annex efforts to use business thinking to promote education and economic development in Afghanistan.
I've worked on anti-poverty activism before, so I will try to bring some of what I learned to this series of posts. My background in sociology will come through in the posts, though not in a pedantic way. I hope.
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