No, not those three little words, I mean the rather too oft quoted 'A survey found.....'. These days it seems almost impossible to go a whole day without reading these three little words. Surveys regularly seem to find that I feed my children convenience food (wrong, I cook from scratch every night), that my children spend all their time on games consoles (wrong again, our Xbox hasn't been turned on for weeks) and that I shower my children in designer clothes (is New Look designer?) Too often it seems that the author has read a summary of the research rather than taking the time to read it in its entirety, then it is parroted down the chain as if it is the very word of God/Mohammed/Yahweh* (delete as applicable).
Some of these 'a survey found...' articles seem to have little more credence than Facebook hoaxes about the British Legion being banned from selling poppies because it might upset some ethnic groups. Even more rare are links to the actual research, so all we are treated to is an often poorly informed opinion dressed up as 'the truth'.
Last night I was reading a blog post in the Daily Telegraph written by Cristina Odone, former editor of the Catholic Herald and Deputy Editor of the New Statesman. The article was yet another diatribe against parents, and middle class parents in particular, who apparently resent their children for their interference with their 'me time'. She quoted a survey which found that more women in their 30s selfishly wanted a house than a baby. (A tiny bit rich from someone who didn't have her first child until she was in her 40s, no doubt long after she stepped onto the housing ladder). It did contain a link to the survey, unfortunately, the link didn't work but when I finally tracked it down, it turned out to be a survey of 2,000 Grazia readers. The demographic of the typical Grazia reader is an 30-something professional woman with money to burn. Over half their readership lives in London. While it is a valid survey, it is representative of the country as a whole? I don't think so.
Ms Odone's article lambasted middle class parents for wanting to spend more time at yoga/bridge/gym rather than with their children. I'm originally from Tunbridge Wells, I epitomise middle class (according to another survey!) yet I don't belong to a gym, have never done yoga and the only bridge I know is the one by my house. The problem I have is trying to get my children to spend more time with me in between gym, rugby training, singing lessons and theatre school and just general socialising. I don't need more 'me' time, I need less!
Last week we were treated to the results of another 'survey', although this time it was dressed up as pukka scientific research. It was the very much regurgitated Unicef survey into 'inequality and materialism' in children in Spain, Sweden and the UK, which showed that British parents spend little time with their children and shower them with consumer goods to make up for it. The report's author, Dr Agnes Nairn, specialises in the effects of marketing and consumerism on children, so, to paraphrase Marilyn Monroe, 'she would say that, wouldn't she'.
Spain and Sweden were apparently chosen as a 'good comparison to the UK in cultural background and policy and legislative framework'. If somebody were to ask me to suggest two countries to compare and contrast to the UK, Sweden and Spain would probably not even make the list. Why not chose France, for instance, where children are shoved into school at two and a half, where mothers routinely return to work 8 weeks after giving birth and where breastfeeding rates are some of the lowest in Europe, but then she has a little sideline teaching at E-M Business School in Lyon so maybe she had one eye on her tenure there.
The survey consisted of filming 24 families across all three countries, even a maths duffer like me can still work out that that is only 8 families per country, and then interviewing a further 250. So out of an approximate population of 11 million children in the UK, 7 million in Spain and 2 million in Sweden, maybe 300 were interviewed to come up with these conclusions. Ah, the fine art of extrapolation! I seem to remember that when a certain Dr Andrew Wakefield used a similarly small cohort to come up with his conclusions about the MMR, he ended up being struck off, yet because this 'research' fits in with the current trend of thought on childhood and parenting in particular, the results are being trumpeted as definitive line on the subject.
Even the opening line of the Unicef report, which cites the 2007 Report Card ranking the UK 18th out of 21 countries for child well being, has a certain degree of dishonesty as it fails to mention the later Report Card 9 which showed that the UK ranked 11th out of 24 for health wellbeing, ahead of Sweden, France and Spain and 13th out of 24 in educational wellbeing ahead of countries like Germany, France, Austria and Belgium. It is for that reason that it is so important that media articles which cite these surveys should show links to the actual research so people can make up their own minds. Personally, I think I could easily find 8 families who, like me, think the research is nonsense. It's all about who you actually ask and personally, I don't think Unicef are the right people to be asking the questions.
Earlier on in the month, the Daily Mail, where links to any research they report on are as rare as Donald Trump's good hair days, ran a report on the findings of the World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Report. In the article they trumpeted the fact that Britain was ranked 43rd in the teaching of maths and science, lagging behind Albania.
However, a look at the actual research showed that the question which led to this startling truth about the state of maths and science in the UK was actually 'how well would you assess the teaching of maths and science in your country's schools?' with 1 being poor and 7 being excellent. It was a purely subjective question and not based on any sort of maths testing, If, for example, you were to ask me how I rated our railway network, I might say, based on my own experience, that it was not very good. An Albanian, on the other hand, might think his railway network is good. Does it actually mean that Albania railways are better than the British ones? No it doesn't. It just means that an Albanian perceives his railway as being good. Likewise, does it mean that Albanians are better at maths and science than the British? No it doesn't. Did the Daily Mail point this out? No. Did it mention that British Business and Management schools were rated in 2nd place out of 142 or that the UK ranked 20th out of 142 in the question 'how well does the education system in your country meet the needs of a competitive economy' above Norway (22), Austria (24), the US (26), France (34) and Spain (96). No and No. Did it even bother to mention that even at 43rd, the UK was still above the average, the median being Malawi at 73rd place.
I'm not disputing any of the research. I don't know enough the science of research to be able to comment. What bothers me is that people accept it at face value without asking the very important questions about who was questioned in the research, who wrote it and who funded it, all of which are necessary to form an objective opinion.