What is fair? Why Americans are concerned about some (but not all) forms of educational inequality

• In Event: Culture and Inequality

Abstract

How do Americans decide what is (or isn’t) fair? Drawing from a nationally-representative survey experiment with open-ended text responses, this study illustrates the dimensions that inform preferences regarding the distribution of educational resources between fictitious students. I find that some – but not all – demographic characteristics influence allocation decisions: respondents allocate more to students from low-income backgrounds and to those with disabilities, in part because they perceive both structural disadvantage and potential for improvement for these groups. However, neither student gender nor race significantly affect allocations; this is due in part to the fact that respondents (1) do not believe that either boys or girls have a relative advantage in educational contexts and (2) do not perceive racial differences in improvement potential (despite recognizing racial differences in experiences of advantage). To explain these patterns, I advance a framework that I term contingent redress, where inequality preferences are informed by subjective cultural frameworks about which demographic groups are disadvantaged, how they came to be in this position, and what (if anything) can be done about it. As a result, attributes like class and disability status, but not race or gender, become socially understood as reflecting quantifiable forms of disadvantage and therefore perceived as deserving of compensatory resources.

Author

• Marissa Thompson, Columbia University