Populism, Privilege, and the Complex Purposes of Public Education

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

This panel explores the ways in which education policy intersects with populism and privilege. It asks how privileged groups shape education, and how this may, in turn, strengthen populism.

The first two papers focus on the United States to consider how the privilege of wealth and residential mobility shape attitudes about what a desirable school district looks like and who should control the less desirable districts. Perhaps one of the most important privileges of wealth is the ability to choose where to live and thus your child’s school. The paper reveals through a survey experiment that survey-takers choose wealthier, whiter districts when they learn information about student achievement, and that the effect is strongest for the wealthiest respondents. The second paper, in contrast, considers attitudes toward less desirable districts. It uses a survey experiment to study when people support state takeovers of local school districts. Takeovers tend to occur in low-performing districts that are often urban and primarily full of students of color. The authors find enthusiasm for state takeovers, whether the justification involves financial mismanagement or student performance, suggesting that the benefit of local control is easily thrown aside when the public views a school district as struggling in some way. Together, the U.S.-focused papers shed light on how people think about what a “good” school district is and who should be able to govern it.

The second two papers focus on the role of business and economic change in enabling populism in Europe. The third paper asks why vocational education enrollment has been declining in recent years, leading to a “forgotten half.” It uses the varieties of capitalism framework to explore whether this has been a result of changed economic structures or active policymaking. The fourth paper asks how education discourse and policymaking has exacerbated populism in European countries. It argues that business groups have played an important role in framing and setting the agenda of education policy. This, in turn, has increased the appeal of populism through the enactment of market reforms and the celebration of the “winners” of the knowledge economy, to the detriment of the “losers.”

Altogether, this panel suggests that education systems are both a consequence and cause of political attitudes and social stratification.

Sub Unit

• Related Groups / Education Politics and Policy

Individual Presentations

• The Impact of Student Growth Data on School District Choice: a Survey Experiment - David Houston, Harvard University; Jeffrey R. Henig, Columbia University

• US Public Opinion on Improving Low-Performing Schools - Beth Schueler, University of Virginia; Martin West, Harvard University

• What Hope for the Forgotten Half? Explaining the Decline of Vocational Education - Amelia Peterson, Harvard University

• Populism and the Losers of the Knowledge Economy: Who Frames Educational Goals? - Marina Cino Pagliarello, London School of Economics

Chair

• Sarah F. Anzia University of California, Berkeley

Discussants

• Jane R. Gingrich University of Oxford

• Leslie K. Finger Harvard University