Policies, People, and Politics: Factors That Shape Whether and How Principals Lead for Democracy

• In Event: Leadership for Democracy: How Are Principals Responding in Troubled Times?

Abstract

Beginning just over fifteen years ago with the release of the Civic Mission of Schools Report (Gibson and Levine, 2003), a steady stream of policy and advocacy documents have trumpeted the need to strengthen civic education. These calls for reform are justified. Multiple factors make real the need for enhanced civic education. At the same time, it is striking that very few systematic studies have examined the factors that shape whether and how school and district leaders support civic education. This paper responds to that gap. Specifically, it examines results from a nationally representative survey of high school principals that asks about the degree to which their school or the district provided professional development and related supports for teachers to promote civic education. We asked about standard approaches to civics such as service learning and controversial issue discussions and about practices that arguably advance democratic agendas but are less commonly associated with civics such as restorative justice and opportunities to use digital media to learn about and share perspectives on societal issues.

We employ multiple regression on a sample of 505 principals to simultaneously assess whether three sets of factors influence principals’ support for civics: 1) District policies that promote attention to civics; 2) characteristics of the principal – their personal engagement with politics, their beliefs about civic education, and their demographic characteristics; and 3) Characteristics of the school and district such as the percentage of students eligible for free and reduced price lunch, whether the district is in an urban, suburban, or rural context, and the partisan lean of the school district. In addition, interviews were conducted with 40 principals to gain a deeper sense of principal’s perspectives and activities related to these civic priorities.

Consistent with expectations, we find a strong positive relationship between district policies and the provision of related professional development for teachers. We also find that principals’ personal levels of civic engagement (outside of school contexts) are strongly related to their school’s support for civic education. In addition, principals of color are more likely to emphasize professional development to support civic learning opportunities such as service learning and controversial issue discussion. Interestingly, we found that the partisan leaning of the community and its demographic characteristics were not related to supports for civic education. These findings were buttressed by the interviews. Principals often detailed commitments to neutrality in response to partisan pressures from parents and the community. In closing, we discuss three implications: 1) District commitment to civics (something that varies widely) appears to be a key support for civic education, 2) Characteristics of the principal matters, and, 3) The political leanings of the district and its demographic characteristics are not related to the provision of these supports for civic education. Interestingly the symposium’s first paper, focusing on supports for tolerance of marginal groups finds that some of these political/demographic factors do matter. During the discussion, we will examine what this difference may imply for the politics of teaching about democratic politics.

Authors

• Joseph E. Kahne, University of California - Riverside

• John S. Rogers, University of California - Los Angeles

• Alexander Kwako, University of California - Los Angeles