Whose Voice And How? Exit, Voice, and Loyalty in Education Politics

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

This panel examines to what extent education policy and politics represent regular citizens or organized interests. This panel asks whether the median voter's voice is represented through school board elections and how parents and local populations express their voices to their school districts. The first and last papers ask whether and when foundations, special interest and unions get more voice than regular citizens The second paper explores the role strategic framing plays in watering down the voices of citizens, in particular when it comes to cues about racial solidarity. The third paper asks how the choice of citizens to use voice or exit are mediated by government institutions and demographics. With a focus on the institutions of representation at the school district level in different parts of the U.S. and even across countries, this panel asks whose voice matters at the local level and how.

Sub Unit

• DIVISION 36: Elections and Voting Behavior

Cosponsor

• Related Groups / Education Politics and Policy

Individual Presentations

• Campaign Contributions and the Case of Competing Interest Groups - Leslie K. Finger, Harvard University; Sarah E. Reckhow, Michigan State University

• School Choice as Community Disempowerment: Racial Rhetoric and Education Policy - Richard Johnson, Lancaster University

• Policy Feedback Effects and Institutional Decline: Theorizing Public Education - James Farney, University of Regina; Linda A. White, University of Toronto

• Taking the Public Out of Education Politics: Off-Cycle School Board Elections - Michael T. Hartney, Boston College; Sam D Hayes, Boston College

Chair

• Paul Manna College of William & Mary

Discussant

• Ursula Hackett Royal Holloway, University of London