Schoolhouse Blues: Partisanship, COVID-19 and Opinions on School Reopenings

• In Event: Policy Feedback and Health Inequity in America

Abstract

To examine the evolution of attitudes about school closures and reopening over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, we partnered with YouGov to conduct a panel survey of Americans’ attitudes. By following the same respondents over the course of the pandemic, interviewing the panel six times from March 2020 to March 2021, we observe changes in attitudes over time within individuals, and can link early pandemic political orientations and respondents’ demographics to a broad set of attitudes about schools many months later. In this paper, we explore the relationship between gender, parenthood, COVID-19 cases and partisanship on respondents’ concerns about school closures, support for reopening, as well behaviors such as sending children back to school. We expect that partisanship will shape attitudes about school reopening but will be moderated by gender. We expect that the prevalence of the virus in the local community will have a negligible effect on attitudes.

Authors

• Shana Kushner Gadarian, Syracuse University

• Sara Wallace Goodman, University of California, Irvine

• Thomas Pepinsky, Cornell University

• Colleen Dougherty Burton, N/A