{"id":291313,"date":"2026-09-22T04:50:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-22T04:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/291313\/"},"modified":"2026-09-22T04:50:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-22T04:50:09","slug":"annenberg-survey-finds-one-third-of-americans-cant-name-the-three-branches-of-government","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/291313\/","title":{"rendered":"Annenberg survey finds one-third of Americans can\u2019t name the three branches of government"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Annenberg Public Policy Center found that many United States adults lack basic civic knowledge.<\/p>\n

A Sept. 15 study, part of an annual Annenberg Civics Knowledge Survey<\/a>, revealed that over one-third of adults cannot name the three branches of government, among other gaps. The center has conducted the survey annually since 2006.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis year\u2019s survey results reaffirm the importance of strengthening civic education in America\u2019s schools,\u201d Lance Holbert, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center\u2019s Leonore Annenberg Institute for Civics, wrote in a statement. \u201cSTEM has been the primary focus of American education since Sputnik, but increased attention needs to be given to teaching\u00a0kids about their government and the nation\u2019s core documents.\u201d<\/p>\n

The survey found that 35% of adults could not name the three branches of government \u2014 a 5% increase from the previous year. According to Holbert, this shift can be attributed to a \u201cvariety of factors.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we seek to identify are trends across multiple years, but we can say in the immediate short term is that the shift from 2025 to 2026 does not signal core civics knowledge levels going in the right direction,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n

Get the DP delivered straight to your inbox.<\/p>\n

Sign Up<\/a><\/p>\n

While 75% of adults could identify \u201cfreedom of speech\u201d as a right guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution\u2019s First Amendment, less than half could identify any others. Only 9% could correctly name all five First Amendment protections, while roughly a quarter could not name any of them.<\/p>\n

25% of respondents wrongly indicated that the right to bear arms, which is outlined in the Second Amendment, is part of the First.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to know your rights in order to be able to exercise those rights,\u201d Holbert argued.<\/p>\n

The survey also found that just over half of Americans understand that the Constitution at least partially protects the rights of undocumented individuals.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis finding indicates we have more work to do to educate the American public on this important issue,\u201d Holbert wrote. \u201cIt also provides some potential insights concerning why different members of the U.S. adult population will have different interpretations of events like the recent SCOTUS decision concerning birthright citizenship.\u201d<\/p>\n

Holbert clarified that the results \u201cshould not be used to generalize to Penn or any other campus population\u201d but could be \u201cgeneralized to the U.S. adult population.\u201d<\/p>\n

Staff reporter Cathy Sui covers politics and can be reached at sui@thedp.com<\/a>. At Penn, she studies finance and statistics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Annenberg Public Policy Center found that many United States adults lack basic civic knowledge. A Sept. 15…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":291314,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[69,71,70],"class_list":["post-291313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=291313"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291313\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/291314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=291313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=291313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=291313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}