Citizen Empowerment -changing the face of statistical literacy

2018

Civic Education has had the same objective (“Mündigkeit”) for the last 50 years, but the conditions to achieve it have changed. Mündigkeit is a prerequisite for citizen’s participation, to strengthen and stabilize democratic structures. In the information age, Mündigkeit regarding statistics means having an orientation in the confusion of the modern information jungle and the deluge of quantitative information and statistics. The requirements for understanding and evaluating information about societal developments have changed: Statistical skills are becoming increasingly important for an evidence-based judgment in today's society. They entail understanding data-related arguments and representations, questioning possible conclusions as well as uncovering opinions and already made decisions

2019

How can we prepare students to understand statistical data and get insights regarding trends and changes on key societal issues such as demographic change, crime, unemployment, pay equity, migration, health, racism, and other areas of concern to society? This paper, summarizing issues of my plenary talk, introduces by extending the notion of statistical literacy a sub-discipline we call civic statistics. Civic statistics focuses on understanding statistical information about society, as provided by the media, statistical offices and other statistics providers. Civic statistics skills are required for participation in democratic societies, but include data that are open, official, multivariate and dynamic, and that are usually neglected in regular statistics education. I present some specific features of civic statistics, provide examples and describe implications for curricula, teacher activities and the future of statistical education. In my presentation, I will give a short online...

Statistics Education Research Journal, 2017

Data are abundant, quantitative information about the state of society and the wider world is around us more than ever. Paradoxically, recent trends in the public discourse point towards a post-factual world that seems content to ignore or misrepresent empirical evidence. As statistics educators we are challenged to promote understanding of statistics about society. In order to re-root public debate to be based on facts instead of emotions and to promote evidence-based policy decisions, statistics education needs to embrace two areas widely neglected in secondary and tertiary education: understanding of multivariate phenomena and the thinking with and learning from complex data.

Radical statistics, 2019, Vol.123, pp.15-23 [Peer Reviewed Journal], 2019

2017

1 1 This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein. All materials are protected by copyright. They may be used as a whole or in parts under above CC License with the exception of the illustrations which may be used for educational purposes only. This syllabus is based on the facets of statistical literacy that make up Civic Statistics (Gal, Nicholson & Ridgway, 2017). There, facets are described in three groups: (1) Engagement & Action, (2) Knowledge Base (3) Enabling Processes. Engagement & Action (facets 1 -3, Meaning for society and policy; Critical evaluation and reflection; and Dispositions) describes features that pertain to any involvement with data about society. Similarly to process standards, these facets cannot be addressed in isolation but permeate any Civic Statistics topic and e...

Statistics Education Research Journal, 2020

The project operates under the IASE. In 2009, the project was strengthened by setting up a threeperson executive team and a network of country coordinators for the project. At the moment, the ISLP has over 90 country coordinators on all continents. Their duty is to be promoters of statistical literacy in their countries. The aim of this presentation is to describe and analyse the activity of country coordinators and ways of advancing statistical literacy in each country. In 2016, the ISLP asked for reports from country coordinators on their activity and received almost 50 responses. Over one-half of the reports came from developing countries and a significant part from Africa. The paper presents a summary of the country coordinators' reports.

Journal of Official Statistics, 2017

This article aims to challenge official statistics providers and statistics educators to ponder on how to help non-specialist adult users of statistics develop those aspects of statistical literacy that pertain to official statistics. We first document the gap in the literature in terms of the conceptual basis and educational materials needed for such an undertaking. We then review skills and competencies that may help adults to make sense of statistical information in areas of importance to society. Based on this review, we identify six elements related to official statistics about which non-specialist adult users should possess knowledge in order to be considered literate in official statistics: (1) the system of official statistics and its work principles; (2) the nature of statistics about society; (3) indicators; (4) statistical techniques and big ideas; (5) research methods and data sources; and (6) awareness and skills for citizens’ access to statistical reports. Based on thi...

1999

Promoting Understanding of Statistics about Society IASE Roundtable Conference

The data deluge over the past twenty years has resulted in an explosion in volumes of available data. Access to data is increasingly easy; technology advances have resulted in increasingly sophisticated ways to represent and analyse these data. Citizens are confronted with statistics and numbers in a multitude of ways, so the imperative for improving statistical literacy is strong if we want a well-informed and data-literate population. Social sciences are embracing quantitative methods as demand grows, in the private and public sectors, for evidence-informed policy and a greater sophistication in approaching difficult to measure constructs, such as global sustainability, is emerging. The Sustainable Development Goals set out by the UN1 in September 2015, and the data requirements associated with them, may accelerate all of these trends. This paper will reflect on the authors’ experiences of working with real data in the context of schools, and university social science courses, ove...

Statistics Education and Outreach IASE Satellite Conference

Official statistical information is a public good and therefore should become common heritage in a full sense. One of the fundamental aims of a National Institute of Statistics is to increase people’s statistical literacy. In order to achieve this, Istat decided to review its communication and didactic priorities and strategies and to start from young people: they must be considered as one of the key groups towards which new statistical 3 literacy activities should be directed. However, the main difference from the past lies in the idea of using the high computer technology and web 2.0 skills which young people nowadays possess in order to attract them to statistics. Our goal is clear: to increase young people’s statistical awareness in order to make them more responsible citizens. Many activities have been already performed and many others are going to be performed.