Players, Pawns, and Selective Admissions: How Public Media Frames an Education Policy Debate

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session 12
  In Roundtable Session: Perceptions, Frames, and Futures: Interrogating Policies and Programs

Abstract

The media helps shape education policy debates in numerous ways (Tamir & Davidson, 2011). We examine a controversial education issue – the admissions policy for elite public high schools in New York City – and examine how reform has been discussed and racialized in two local newspapers - The New York Times and the New York Post. We use frame theory (Goffman, 1974) as our conceptual framework, and frame analysis as our methodology. Our preliminary analysis suggests the Post frames reform as a battle and the Times as a moral imperative. Both papers frame politicians as players and minoritized students as pawns, while rendering white actors invisible. Discourse about this reform influences and is influenced by racialized positions in the policy debate.

Authors

• Anna Kushner, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Ann LoBue, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Carolyn J. Riehl, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Linda Moftah, Teachers College, Columbia University