There was a survey about parental attitudes around sex education getting some quite prominent coverage in the press towards the end of last week (it’s cited here for instance, and here, and here).
Now if you’re anything like me, you might have wondered about the coincidence of such a survey coming out in the very week that, thanks to Wednesday’s 10 minute rule bill on the subject from Nadine Dorries, sex education in schools was set to become a really hot topic. Indeed, following on from the Parliamentary debate, Dorries even used the survey herself in one of her own ‘blog’ posts to help illustrate the support her bill had attracted, and to help reinforce her argument that abstinence education for girls is something that the majority of parents want:
“We are excited that a very high profile individual, not from the world of politics, wants to come on board. Pollsters conducted snap polls and the results were so favourable, I was shocked. Which makes this following link to the BBC report re parents concerns re sex education in schools, no surprise.
And yet it now turns out that there was no coincidence or serendipity involved in the date of the survey’s publication: because the so-called ‘survey’ isn’t so much a survey as a marketing stunt by PR company 10 Yetis.
And a very cynical marketing stunt at that.
Unity has already covered this extensively over at the Ministry of Truth – Sex Education, Churnalism, and 10 Yetis – A Cornucopia of Crap, and now so has Tim at Bloggerheads – 10 Yetis, BabyChild, and the many deceits of Charlotte Horsfall. Liberal Conspiracy covered it yesterday with Sunny’s post – BBC churns for Dorries without checking source, but now I’m going to weigh in on this one too.
And that’s not just because I was involved in helping with the research on this over the weekend along with Tim, Unity, and Richard Bartholomew, but because, as I’ve already pointed out before on this blog, the media’s willingness these days to simply churn out press releases and present them as fact really bloody matters.
In this case it matters because of the way 10 Yetis (or their own white-label store BabyChild who allegedly commissioned the ‘survey’) have chosen to interpret the ‘survey’ results. No, scratch that: it matters because of how 10 Yetis weighted the ‘survey’ questions in the first place.
Actually, truth be told, it matters because the entire ‘survey’ is flawed from start to finish, and the results could have been interpreted in a myriad of different ways. In fact the cynic in me suggests that had Dorries’ bill gone the other way, 10 Yetis would have found a way to make their ‘survey’ fit, and the press headlines about it would have read somewhat differently. As Tim so eloquently points out: “10 Yetis could just as easily have come out against what Dorries proposed, because the ‘findings’ of this poll are a meaningless muddle of mendaciousness.”
Here, have a look for yourselves – Click here for the ‘survey’
Just as an example, do you see that first question? “Do you agree with the fact that sex education is often taught to children in schools, even from a young age?” Well even I would have answered ‘no‘ to that. And that’s not because I don’t agree with sex education being taught to children in schools even from a young age, but because I don’t agree that it is a “fact that sex education is often taught to children in schools, even from a young age.” That question is so unclear it renders the result completely bloody meaningless.
As for the last three questions, again, I agree with Tim: “using these last 3 questions, one can use it to argue strongly for sex education in schools; the respondents’ children appear to seek information about sex at a younger age than it is taught in schools, and the majority of parents are ill-equipped to deal with it themselves.”
So anyway, what we basically have here is a ‘survey’ commissioned by a company that is owned by the very same people that own the company that carried out the survey in the first place, produced solely in order to generate publicity for their two companies. It’s a survey that would have come out last week whatever the result of Dorries’ 10 minute rule bill, and that probably only came out last week because of Dorries’ 10 minute rule bill. The only thing that might have been different about it would have been if Dorries’ bill had been rejected, in which case the conclusions 10 Yetis drew from the survey would have been entirely different too.
And yet because they were sent a press release about the survey, and because they can’t be arsed to check their sources anymore, the Daily Mail, the BBC, the Mirror and other parts of the mainstream media have been spouting the “parents oppose school sex education for children” shtick like it’s the fucking gospel.
That’s churnalism for you.
Too Much To Say For Myself 
Well disentangled, Cath.
I always thought Yetis were creatures that lived on another planet. Evidently it’s true!
Any truth in the rumour 10 Yetis are being hired by the Poppy Prokect for their next survey?
Ah someone had to make a spurious claim about The Poppy Project. Unlike this market research company, The Poppy Project have always undertaken real ethical research – not the common garden market research conducted by the company claiming to have a ‘snap poll of UK residents’ views.
Ever wondered why market research exists? It exists because corporate companies wish to bolster their claims that their products/services are wonderful so closed surveys are devised to ensure the outcome is precisely what these corporate companies want to hear.
That’s market research – not social research but never mind Josephine and Joe Blogg will never know the difference and it suits Nadine Dorries and her male supremacist supporters just fine. Remember the issue surrounding sex education is all about continued male control and male policing of women and girls, not providing girls and boys with real sex education which does not repeat biological myths declaring phallocentricism is the sin que of ‘real sex!’
The Poppy Project however has never used market research companies but that has never stopped pro-prostitution apologists from demonising Poppy Project’s research because it doesn’t tally with the lies pro-prostitutors want to hear.
Apart from all the problems already cited, there is another with any ‘survey’ of this kind and it is voluntary response bias.
http://stattrek.com/Help/Glossary.aspx?Target=Voluntary%20response%20bias
In survey sampling, voluntary response bias occurs when sample members are self-selected volunteers, as in voluntary samples . An example would be call-in radio shows that solicit audience participation in surveys on controversial topics (abortion, affirmative action, gun control, etc.). The resulting sample tends to overrepresent individuals who have strong opinions.
In other words a survey with a voluntary response proves jack shit. But also of course the survey isn’t representative of the general population, but of people who were on a particular internet site as far as we can see. So it is a self selected group from a self selected group.
But having said that, I do wonder whether parents are the best judge of whether their child should receive sex education or not anyway. What if a raving homophobe (can’t think of one of the top of my head, can anyone help?) were to have a gay child.
They presumably wouldn’t want that child to learn about non heterosexual sex at school. But it would be in the child’s interests to do so. Similarly for the children of religious nutcases…..