The Production of Political Inequality: How High School Teachers Shape Long-Term Voting Behaviors

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Abstract

Education has long been linked to voter turnout, but how educational institutions shape political behaviors is less well understood. In this paper, we investigate how student-teacher relationships in high school are related to long-term voting behaviors. Using the High School and Beyond dataset, linked to respondents’ voting records, we examine how teachers’ perceptions of their students’ skills and behaviors during high school are associated with students’ voting behavior in midlife. We find that students with teachers who believed they were going to go to college, were working up to their potential, were self-disciplined and liked school are more likely to vote in midlife, even conditioning on students’ family background, skills, civic participation in high school, course-taking, and educational attainment.

Authors

• Jamie Mary Carroll, The University of Texas - Austin

• Karen Monique Loya, Cornell University