I need to know where I can find polls/surveys regarding the amount of
information that Americans (or people from other developed nations)
have about international (or developing country) specific
issues--geographical information (i.e. where is x?), political
information (i.e. who is the leader of x?), or recent issues (i.e. are
they having a war in x?). I want links to all of the surveys/polls you
can find, or to websites will a number of such polls. (The original
polls w/ the results would be best, but summaries of these polls would
still be helpful.) I would like survey/polling data from all different
decades, as far back as possible and as recent as possible, because
the goal is to compare knowledge in the past with knowledge now.

If you have any clarifications please ask. I am NOT interested in
opinion only polls (i.e. do you like what bush is doing about x
international issues? or what do you think should be done about x?),
but factual ones... of course, polls/surveys containing both opinion
and factual data are fine, and, in fact, interesting... Thanks for the
help.

Hi there 

My search started at the following page, with some interesting facts
and figures:

http://www.photodude.com/weblog/dumped/2002/November/002380.shtml

From here, there's a link to the following page with more interesting
stats:

http://www.cnn.com/2002/EDUCATION/11/20/geography.quiz/index.html

Rather worryingly, 11% of US citizens aged 18-24 couldn't locate the
United States on a map!

To view the questions go here:

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/geosurvey/download/RoperSurvey.pdf

Relevant questions are No.'s 18 -23 (p 54-57). Unfortunately, the maps
used for the questions are not included.

Within the report findings of note are:

'Younger Americans are less likely that older Americans to know where
Israel (21% vs 29%) and Afghanistan (17% vs 23%) are on a world map.'

'The proportion of young Americans deeming map reading "absolutely
necessary" decreased significantly from 1988 (from 74% to 43% among
18-24 year olds).'

There's a host of other facts and figures in the report which you may
find useful.

There are several references and comparisons, with figures included,
for the 1988 survey (conducted by Gallup) but I can't find the '88
survey as a separate entity on the net. A useful source could be:

Gallup Poll (1988). "Geography: An International Gallup Survey."
Princeton, NJ: The Gallup Organization

You might be able to find it in your library.

It's not only Americans that are poor when it comes to geography:

'Young Americans fared worse than their peers in seven of the eight
other countries surveyed earlier this year, though no national group
earned an excellent mark. Young people in the other English-speaking
countries in the study—Canada and Great Britain—scored almost as
poorly as Americans on a test of geography and current events.'
http://www.edweek.org/ew/ewstory.cfm?slug=13geography.h22

Again, a comparison of results across countries can be read in the
National Geographic report.

This page gives some figures regarding estimates of population size
for 1971:

http://www.cals.cornell.edu/dept/ruralsoc/extension/nys/stycos/jmax.txt

The full survey does not appear to be online however.

This site gives some stats comparing Americans with Canadians:

http://www.recorder.ca/cp/national/021201/n120108A.html

I've searched extensively for other, earlier surveys. There doesn't
appear to be any online sources. I suggest finding the Gallup
reference in the library to locate other pre 1988 sources.

If you require clarification of this answer, please don't hesitate.

Best wishes

sim-ga


Search engine: Google

Search Terms:

americans survey geography

://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=americans+survey+geography

americans survey geography roperasw "1988 survey"

://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=americans+survey+geography+roperasw+%221988+survey%22

americans gallup survey geography -2002 -political

://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=americans+gallup+survey+geography+-2002+-political

"geography survey" gallup

://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=+%22geography+survey%22+gallup+

"geography survey" "young american"

://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=+%22geography+survey%22+%22young+american%22+

not a bad answer regarding recent information, but almost completely
lacking the historical information asked for... moreover, sim posted
almost exactly what the commenter posted.

Hi yalebulldog,
I am posting this as a comment as opposed to an answer because I could
not find data from long ago.  I only have surveys conducted recently.
Funny thing you asked this.  I recently read a new survey by National
Geographic comparing geopolitical literacy of young adults (sample
size 3250) in nine developed nations, including the United States. 
Questions in the survey deal with topics ranging from population,
religion, Kashmir conflict, Al Qaeda, currency, meteorology, AIDS; to
basic geography skills such as identifying nations on maps.  Overall,
American young adults performed poorly compared to young adults in
other nations.
You can find the full survey and results here:
http://geosurvey.nationalgeographic.com/geosurvey/download/RoperSurvey.pdf
You can also test yourself by taking the survey here:
http://geosurvey.nationalgeographic.com/geosurvey/templates/question_1.html
A CNN article on the survey can be found here:
http://www.cnn.com/2002/EDUCATION/11/20/geography.quiz/index.html

In lights of these revelations, the Mirror, a British tabloid, decided
to conduct its own (hardly scientific) survey right in the middle of
Times Square in New York city.  They found that 80% of the 100
Americans surveyed could not pinpoint Iraq in an unlabeled atlas.  You
can find its story at
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/page.cfm?objectid=12391630&method=full&siteid=50143
In another note, a survey of 200 British pupils conducted 2 years ago
found "appalling" history knowledge.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/1123738.stm

Search strategy:
"geographic literacy"
my memory