White Voters, the Real Puzzle: Framing Education in Presidential Election Campaigns, 1980–2012

• In Event: Roundtable Session 36
  In Roundtable Session: Evidence, Policy, and Politics

Abstract

This interdisciplinary study draws evidence from 13 archives and print and online media to interrogate how candidates for the U.S. presidency have framed education during the last fifty years. In doing so, it illuminates the salience of race in how candidates for the presidency have attempted to use the issue of education to their advantage. Despite taking different positions on key education issues, in particular on vouchers, candidates for both parties have used education to woo the same constituency−white, moderate voters−even though they acknowledged that these voters’ attitudes toward education rested on a lack of knowledge about racial inequality in the nation. This paper explores important questions about race, education, and the state of our nation’s democracy.

Author

• DeeAnn Grove, University of Iowa