Civic Skills and Ambition Among Elected School Board Trustees

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Abstract

Can the experiences of elected school board trustees prior to running for office and their aspirations for political life beyond their current service inform our understanding of civic engagement and political ambition? This paper is part of a larger effort both to understand the pathways to elected office among school board trustees and to examine whether serving on the school board is a springboard to future elected office. We also explore possible gender differences in this ambition. The Civic Volunteerism Model holds that civic capacity (resources and skills), motivation, and recruitment are key elements in a person’s political participation. In our previous work (Deen and Shelton 2017, 2020), we found early evidence that service on citizen advisory boards and participation in school related volunteering (room parent, PTA, booster clubs) affords individuals opportunities to develop skills and political networks, which position them well for recruitment to run for school board. We also found that these experiences are gendered. Women candidates are more likely to have been “do it all” types, participating in parent activities and in broader community based venues, while men can be successful candidates for school board with fewer lines on their resumes. The current project expands on this work and builds on studies of ambition among school board trustees (Sweet-Cushman 2018) to understand more completely both the civic engagement precursors to their election and their ambition for holding elected office in the future. Specifically, we want to know if the gender differences in the domains of skill and motivation development that we found among the largest school districts are present across the broader landscape of elected trustees. This will contribute significantly to our understanding of this understudied group of elected officials.

Deen, Rebecca E. and Beth Anne Shelton. 2020. “From Civic Mindedness to Electoral Politics: Citizen Advisory Committees and the Decision to Run for School Board.” In Good Reason to Run. Temple University Press.

Sweet-Cushman, Jennie. 2018. “Where does the pipeline get leaky? The progressive ambition of school board members and personal and political network recruitment. In Politics, Groups, and Identities DOI: 10.1080/21565503.2018.1541417.

Deen, Rebecca E and Beth Anne Shelton. 2017. “Motherhood and Public Service: An Exploration of School Board Trustees.” In Mothers in Politics and Public Life, Demeter Press.

Authors

• Rebecca E. Deen, University of Texas, Arlington

• Beth Anne Shelton, University of Texas at Arlington