Exit, Voice and Difference: Privilege, Choice and Parent Engagement in Schools

• In Event: Democratic Education? How Schooling Shapes Civic Engagement and Social Capital

Abstract

Citizens play an essential role in the production of public services; their actions shape the scope, direction and quality of many governmental programs and contribute to broad civic health.
This certainly true in American public education. Policymakers and scholars alike promote parent engagement as a critical factor in school success; moreover, school settings have historically been an important proving ground whereby citizens exercise oversight and, in the process, build upon, cultivate, and extend their social capital in ways that translate into broader civic engagement and political action (Abernathy 2005; Braatz & Putnam 1996; Crawford & Levitt 1999).

Given these benefits, we need to know more about the social and institutional conditions under which parent engagement is most likely to occur. In recent decades the United States has experienced significant social change and often-dramatic efforts to reform and recreate longstanding public institutions. Among these are increased racial and economic diversity and the increased marketization of public services. This paper examines changes in citizen/ parent voice in light of these changes.

Research on social capital, co-production, marketization and diversity has been mixed. Both advocates of the social capital construct and critics acknowledge that social capital’s benefits may not accrue equally to all groups (Hero 2003) and that diversity may mute civic engagement (Putnam 1999). Prior research (Destler 2016) has found that the relationship between diversity and co-production varies both by the intensity of the activity demanded and by the racial or ethnic identity of the citizen. We know less about how these relationships are affected by marketization, which increases client opportunities for exit and voice.

Hirschman’s canonical work (1970) suggests that exit options in market-based systems can diminish client’s use of loyalty and voice. Others (e.g. Schneider et al 1997) suggest that choice will increase ownership of public systems and thus heighten incentives for co-production. Empirical findings (e.g. Abernathy 2005; Bifulco & Ladd 2006; Cox & Wilco 2008; Tedin & Wehir 2011) have been mixed; moreover, none of these studies adequately considers the effects of market systems on citizen voice in the face of racial and economic diversity.

Toward that end, this paper asks:
To what extent is the exercise of client voice predicted by organizational loyalty and/or the availability of exit, and how is this relationship moderate by racial/ethnic characteristics at the parent or school level?

It answers these question by analyzing data from the 2007 and 2010 waves of the National Household Education Survey (n=27,500), which queries parents nationwide about their involvement in their children’s education and schools. Employing school fixed effects and controlling for a range of parent characteristics (including a parent’s engagement in educational activities outside of schools), it finds compelling evidence that exit and loyalty are predictive of parent voice. Parents who report a “choice” about where to send their children to school are less likely to participate in school committees or to voice concerns in the face of dissatisfaction. By contrast, parents who have invested sunk costs (e.g. home purchase) or otherwise exhibit loyalty to a school (e.g. by participation in social events) are more likely to participate in committees and to voice their concern. Moreover, there is evidence that these key factors are themselves conditioned by race and socio-economic status.

Given the continued move towards market systems in education and many other government sectors, it is important to understand how these systems affect citizen voice both independently and in conjunction with other societal factors, such as racial and economic diversity. Proponents of markets in education and other policy domains (e.g. Chubb & Moe 1990) promote them in part on the grounds that they increase organizational responsiveness to parent clients and thus increase systemic incentives for quality improvement. Yet as Hirschman has demonstrated, all too often, those with the most privilege are the first to exit; under these circumstances markets may not only exacerbate the stratification of service quality but ultimately lay the groundwork for broader organizational decline.

Author

• Katharine Elizabeth Neem Destler, Western Washington University