How School Boards Utilize Organizational Routines During Moments of Tension

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Wednesday 11:45 am - Gold 1
  In Roundtable Session: School Boards as Sites of Discourse, Legitimation, and Racialized Institutional Logics Amid Democratic Unrest

Abstract

School board meetings serve as a crucial site of community engagement and advocacy, where education governance leaders interact with the community (Morel, 2018). Research finds that organizational and political pressures often lead school leaders to ignore the advocacy of racially minoritized communities (Daramola et al., 2022; Sampson & Bertrand, 2022). This study explores one of the mechanisms through which school board members and district leaders delegitimize racially minoritized perspectives during school board meetings—routines (Diamond & Gomez, 2023). We ask:

How do school boards utilize performative and ostensive routines during moments of racial tension?
We examine this question by conducting a cross-case analysis of three school boards that experienced racialized tensions in their school board meetings.

Theoretical Framework
Scholars have identified two types of routines: ostensive and performative. Ostensive routines are stated policies and are “abstract patterns that participants use to guide, account for, and refer to specific performances of a routine” (Pentland & Feldman, 2005, p. 795). The second type of routines, performative routines, allows for actor agency and are the “actual performances by specific people, at a specific time, in specific places” (Pentland & Feldman, 2005, p. 795). Performative routines are often established in relation to the relevant actors and the details of the current situation (Pentland & Feldman, 2005). This study examines how school boards utilize routines during moments of racial tension.

Data and Methods
This study combines analyses of school board meetings from three separate ethnographic case studies. As Table 1 shows, each study employed similar methods. However, the cases differ on key contextual elements.
Table 1.


Method
Year of Study
Geographic Location
District Demographics
Data Collected
Case 1
Ethnographic Case Study
2019-2020
Southern City
Black: 85%
White: 7%
Latinx: 4%
Asian: 4%
Video of School Board meetings: 6:30 hours

Artifacts: 25
Case 2
Ethnographic Case Study
2019-2020
Western City
Latinx: 50%
Black: 20%
Asian: 13%
White: 10%
Mixed Race: 7%
Video of School Board meetings: 15:51 hours

Artifacts: 28
Case 3
Ethnographic Case Study
2022-2023
Western City
White: 70%
Latinx: 23%
Mixed Race: 5%
Black: 1%
Asian: 1%
Video of School Board meetings: 17:08 hours

Artifacts: 19

Data from each case was analyzed and independently using inductive methods. Then we conducted a cross-case analysis utilizing a matrix driven by routines (Bush-Mecenas & Marsh, 2018). Artifacts (e.g., meeting minutes, school board websites) were a primary source of data for identifying ostensive routines. We relied on video observations to identify the performance of routines.

Preliminary Findings
Our preliminary findings indicate that across the three cases, boards often relied on ostensive rules around public comment to quiet or stop racially minoritized members from speaking. However, the same boards enforced these routines around public comments inconsistently. Overall, we find that routines were a tool that board members used to shape public discourse in the board’s favor.

Significance
Recent scholarship in organizational theory establishes that racism becomes embedded within organizational governance structures (Ray, 2019; Wooten & Couloute, 2017). Our study shows how school boards may utilize routines to quiet dissent from racialized communities.

Authors

• Eupha Jeanne Daramola, University of California - Irvine

• James C. Bridgeforth, University of Delaware