Skip to main content

Political bias

I know there have been some debates in the edublogosphere lately about political statements in/around the classroom. Personally, I don't think schools should tell teachers (whether K-12 or higher ed) that they can't wear political pins or have campaign bumper stickers or whatever. At the same time, I take my Obama pin off my bookbag when I'm at school, not because I think faculty shouldn't be allowed to wear such things, but because I don't want it to affect how my students perceive what I'm saying in the classroom. I talk about public policy a lot in all my classes but since I try to hew closely to positive (vs. normative) analysis of any issue, my students usually cannot tell what political party I belong to. I consider this A Good Thing.

Perhaps my students are not as cynical as I am but as soon as I know what a person's political beliefs are, it affects how I perceive what they say about policy issues, particularly if I do not agree with them. That is, I believe it's human nature for us to more readily accept information that is consistent with the world view we already hold, and to distrust information that is inconsistent with that world view. Dismissing information we don't like is easier when it comes from someone we can label as 'biased' (though it is also human nature to believe that people we disagree with are 'biased' while those we agree with are 'neutral').

In an economics class, even positive analysis can be perceived as normative if the conclusions are at odds with a student's worldview. A good example is tax incidence: every (neoclassical) economist in the world will tell you that it doesn't matter who the government collects the tax from (statutory incidence), both the seller and the consumer will pay the tax in the form of changed prices, relative to the price without the tax (economic incidence). But when I tell students that removing the gas tax does not mean the price of gas will fall by the full amount of the tax, they have a hard time believing it - even if they can follow the theory, they simply don't believe it. I worry that if they thought I was a "tax-loving liberal", they would probably be even less inclined to believe the theory itself. You can imagine how this problem would be compounded when we get into topics that are even less clear-cut.

So I bend over backwards to make sure that I am staying as objective as possible. When there are normative judgments to be made, I tend to talk in 'if-then' statements: "If you believe in the ability-to-pay principle, you would be more likely to support a progressive tax system" or "if you believe that the value of the benefit externality is large, then you might feel government intervention is appropriate", etc.

All of which is lead-in to the point of this post: I am considering using this McCain clip as part of a discussion of why we have a progressive income tax system. On the one hand, I think it sums up the basic issue pretty well (i.e., lots of people think it's unfair to tax rich people more, lots of other people think it's OK to ask people to pay more once they reach a 'certain level of comfort'), and I think that the fact that it's coming from John McCain could potentially give it more credibility with students who are Republicans. On the other hand, deep down, there's a part of me that gets some joy from showing those Republican students that the man is saying the exact opposite thing today from what he was saying 7 years ago. Because of that, I probably won't use it. But if it were anyone but McCain, I would, and that's bugging me too.

Comments

  1. Use it! I still do not understand why I am not seeing and hearing more about what progressive taxation is about and the history behind it, in response to this "spreading the wealth around is socialism and therefore we must fear and despise Obama the Socialist" garbage. People need to understand that just the fact that "progressive taxation = socialism" is flying with so much of our populace right now is evidence of how far to the right our overall political discourse and climate has gone. Here's a great article about McCain's hero, Teddy Roosevelt, and his support for progressive taxation:
    http://www.slate.com/id/2202950/

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Comments that contribute to the discussion are always welcome! Please note that spammy comments whose only purpose seems to be to direct traffic to a commercial site will be deleted.

Popular posts from this blog

Economics Education sessions at ASSA

If I missed any, please let me know... Jan 07, 2011 8:00 am , Sheraton, Director's Row H American Economic Association K-12 Economic and Financial Literacy Education (A2) Presiding: Richard MacDonald (St. Cloud State University) Teacher and Student Characteristics as Determinants of Success in High School Economics Classes Jody Hoff  (Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco) Jane Lopus (California State University-East Bay) Rob Valletta (Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco) [Download Preview] It Takes a Village: Determinants of the Efficacy of Financial Literacy Education for Elementary and Middle School Students Weiwei Chen (University of Memphis) Julie Heath (University of Memphis) Economics Understanding of Albanian High School Students: Student and Teacher Effects and Specific Concept Knowledge Dolore Bushati (University of Kansas) Barbara Phipps (University of Kansas) Lecture and Tutorial Attendance and Student Performance in t...

This is about getting through, not re-inventing your course

As someone who has worked hard to build a lot of interactivity into my courses, I have never been interested in teaching fully online courses, in part because I have felt that the level of engaged interaction could never match that of a face-to-face class (not that there aren't some exceptional online courses out there; I just have a strong preference for the in-person connection). But the current situation is not really about building online courses that are 'just as good' as our face-to-face courses; it is about getting through this particular moment without compromising our students' learning too much. So if you are used to a lot of interaction in your F2F class, here are some options for adapting that interaction for a virtual environment: [NOTE: SDSU is a Zoom/mostly Blackboard campus so that's how I've written this but I am pretty sure that other systems have similar functionality] If you use clickers in class to break up what is otherwise mostly lect...

Moving on...

I want to let everyone know that I am officially closing out this chapter of my blogging life. It was 17 years ago this May that I started this blog, back when blogging was still relatively new, and I was exploring ways to have my students do some writing. During the years from 2008 to 2015-ish, when I was most active with experimenting with different pedagogical approaches, this space helped me process what I was learning, and connected me with economists and other colleagues who care about teaching. As I have moved into other roles, I have been torn about what to do with this space, feeling a bit weird about posting anything not directly related to teaching. I have finally decided I need to start fresh so I will be writing (though I have no idea how regularly) on Substack .  Thank you to everyone who has read and commented over the years. I hope you'll find me on Substack, or in real life!