Can Deliberative Processes Improve Low-Income Minority Parent Engagement?

• In Event: Reinvigorating Democratic Legitimacy Through Democratic Innovation and Protest

Abstract

The paper I'm writing now is about schools and the benefits of community engagement during Parent and community engagement is now considered a necessary component of school success (Epstein et al. 2002; Henderson et al. 2007). Most schools and districts, particularly in large urban cities, now have an agency or office dedicated to communicating with parents and stakeholders. The units are especially prevalent in low-performing schools, where administrators frame them as tools for school improvement. There is evidence that parent and community engagement actually works. The challenge has been eliminating barriers to engagement, especially for people of color and folks of low-income households. Theories and tests of deliberation offer hope that discursive processes can reduce barriers. Using a pair of original survey experiments with oversamples of low-income people of color, this study tests the effect of exposing individuals to virtual and in-person school board meetings that market themselves as deliberative vs. purely informative. I find evidence that people are more responsive to school boards incorporating deliberative processes, while taking public health precautions. This study suggests that the use of deliberative norms during public meetings are particularly useful during times of crisis.

Author

• Jonathan Collins, Brown University