June 10- 11, 1998
Report on the Conference: Mapping the Terrain: Political Science and Education ResearchMark Rigdon, Scott Abernathy
Executive Summary
This report outlines a research agenda utilizing the tools of political science to examine issues of education and educational policy in the United States. These recommendations emerged from a conference sponsored by the Spencer Foundation in June, 1998. The conference was broadly divided into two sessions (see attached agenda.) The first focused on the more empirical questions of educational policy and politics, with panel presentations and subsequent discussion about the role of institutional design and policy actors in determining educational outcomes. The second session raised both normative and empirical questions of educational culture and political values, with panels on the idea of citizenship and larger goals for our educational system.
This research agenda is divided into three sections. The first presents central themes of the discussions on educational policy and politics, with an emphasis on the roles of institutions and policy actors in determining educational outcomes. Key research questions centered on the connections between institutional design and educational policy outcomes, the uniqueness of schools as governmental institutions, the roles of specific policy actors in determining educational outcomes, and the relationship between citizens and educational policies and outcomes. The second section considers questions of educational culture and political values, with a focus on citizenship and educational goals. Key issues include the current state of civic education in the United States, the creation of students' political identities within schools, and the often contradictory goals of education in our society. The concluding section discusses the research implications of key themes that emerged during both sessions.
Overview
On June 11, 1998 the Spencer Foundation, with the assistance of Jennifer Hochschild of Princeton University and Richard Merelman of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, assembled a diverse group of political scientists to explore areas of inquiry within education which might benefit from the diverse methods and approaches of political science. The conference was designed to address the potential contributions in both normative and empirical approaches to the study of education and to stimulate conversations between these often divergent research traditions. This report is organized into three sections. The first outlines an empirical research agenda focusing on the institutions and actors which determine educational outcomes in the United States. The second section presents a research agenda addressing the normative questions of values and the education of future citizens. The final section discusses the research implications of key themes emerging from the conversations and short papers presented by conference participants: the inadequacy of current knowledge about education politics, the importance of expanding the focus of research beyond analyses of specific policies to include analyses of the political processes that govern education politics, and the need to link empirical and normative approaches within studies of education.
In her opening remarks, Spencer Foundation President, Patricia Albjerg Graham, alluded to the full meaning of the session's guiding metaphor, the mapping of the terrain of political science research in education, by noting that the act of mapping involves both planning and dividing. While planning and clarifying "the range of issues and problems that drive political scientists' interest in education," she also encouraged conference participants to "clarify diverse theoretical and methodological approaches needed to examine these issues and identify the disciplinary contribution that political scientists can make to education research." This process of dividing the terrain into tractable methodological pieces highlights the often significant disconnect between empirical and normative approaches that exist within political science while offering a potentially unique opportunity to combine these methods to cope with the complexity of the relationship between politics, citizens, and schools. The maps which emerge from these conversations are meant to be used to connect the discipline to a broader public in an analysis of key policy issues, and to engage the next generation of political scientists in a crucial but often neglected field of inquiry. The Foundation also hopes that they will stimulate the submission of outstanding research proposals for funding.
Educational Policy and Politics
In what ways does institutional design constrain, determine, or provide opportunities for educational policy outcomes?
Conference participants agreed that an institutional study of education needs to address explicitly the political structures and processes that influence the outcomes that result from reform efforts. In that institutions create constraints and opportunities, fostering some goals to the exclusion of others, the politics of the implementation process represents a significant gap in political scientists' understanding of education. Conference participants encouraged critical examination of "the basis for thinking that certain kinds of reforms will work," and that once adopted, "they won't be upset by other kinds of political forces." While there has been recent work on the likely effects of policy initiatives on student achievement, there remains little work linking interventions at the student level to factors that augment or inhibit their maintenance and expansion to the larger system. Why do some reform efforts take hold while others disappear in a process of retrenchment? Are certain reform efforts more or less likely to succeed given different political contexts?
Are schools unique?
Closely related to the role of political institutions in the implementation of educational reform efforts, is the question of the uniqueness of schools as political institutions. Conference participants were divided on the merits of analyzing schools as examples of local government agencies or in treating them as unique by virtue of the services they provide. Some participants asserted that there exists no systematic evidence of the uniqueness of schools as political institutions, but that they share many of the same characteristics of other governmental organizations, including the role of political actors, interest groups, and bureaucratic organizations in their operation. Other participants, however, argued that, given the role of schools in the production of political preferences and identities, applying the tools of institutional analysis to schools might be too narrow a focus. Yet it remains clear that little is now known about the decision-making processes in schools, regardless of their uniqueness, and that these processes must be better understood if we really want to understand how political influences shape what schools do.
Is education primarily a local phenomenon?
Most of what is currently known about the politics of education in the United States has been derived primarily from analyses of urban school districts, examined under the framework of local politics. Given major demographic and political changes during the past twenty years, it is reasonable to question researchers' assumption that school politics are primarily urban and that the theatre is local. Suburban and rural schools districts have not been sufficiently studied, and it would be useful to know more about the politics of education in these contexts. What are the issues? Who is participating? Who is voting? What is the role of the local school board in determining educational policy outcomes? How do local boards make decisions? A comparative analysis of rural, urban, and suburban settings might yield important insights about local politics within and beyond education. Conference participants also suggested a case study approach to these questions, one which might examine "how different school districts involve their publics in decision-making" and "how patterns of local participation have changed over time."
Scholars of education politics and policies were encouraged not to focus on local educational politics to the exclusion of state and national politics, processes which participants argued are becoming increasingly important to educational policy. The increased role of state government in local affairs, particularly in school finance, educational accountability, academic standards, and education of students with exceptional needs have eroded the autonomy of local educational agencies and local school boards. Particularly in impoverished urban school districts, the role of the governor and state legislators has eclipsed the influence of mayors and other local actors in the educational arena. What is the relation between a school district's fiscal autonomy and its political autonomy? Given the increased role of the state in distributing monies to poor districts, are wealthier districts more able to innovate or tailor externally imposed reforms to their local needs than poorer ones?
What are the roles of specific policy actors in determining educational outcomes?
Conference participants agreed that the number of political actors in the educational arena is large and growing. They indicated that there is a need to better understand the conditions under which different actors become involved in educational reform throughout the stages of consensus building, implementation, and retrenchment or success. In San Francisco, for example, the court played a crucial role in the educational reform process. In Baltimore, the courts and the legislature were equally determinative of the outcomes. Under what conditions does the impetus for or resistance to educational reform begin in a specific branch of government? Does the involvement of political actors vary with the array of interests involved in the political process? For example, do the politics of interest aggregation in a multi-racial and multi-ethnic community differ from that of a less diverse community?
Participants also noted the absence of studies of many of the key actors in the educational system. Teachers' unions have been largely ignored in recent political science literature, as has the structure of collective bargaining and its impacts on educational policies and outcomes. The connections between teachers' political beliefs and the political advocacy of their unions have been largely ignored, but are worthy of study. Teachers as political actors also merit attention. As local school board elections and school budget referenda are typically "low-turn-out, low-information," teachers as voters and political activists may play an important role in the political process.
What is the relationship between citizens and school policies?
What are citizens' policy preferences with regard to education? Any analysis of the translation of policy preferences to political outcomes needs to ascertain these preferences and their development and modification. One participant stressed that we currently "know little about how parents and the public form their attitudes: what role expert information plays in attitude formation as compared with other influences such as friends, neighbors, and elites; how the media may work as an agenda-setter; how attitudes are related to each other, and how they change or remain stable over time." Survey data have been collected for decades, yet they have not been subjected to the same analysis as citizens' preferences in other political domains.
The data that have been examined, however, yield a complex and possibly contradictory picture of citizens' preferences. The public appears to place a greater trust in local actors, such as parents and teachers, yet "supports policies such as national curriculum standards and national testing that would centralize key decisions about schooling." The public also appears to have strikingly different preferences than educational reformers, yet the reasons for and consequences of this disconnect for educational policy remain unclear. The role of the media in framing or altering citizens' attitudes toward education is also in need of study, as we yet lack basic information about the content of education-related stories in local and national media markets and their effect on decision-making processes. Current demographic trends may affect citizens' policy preferences in important ways. The increasing proportion of voters without children and the increasing minority representation within the school-age population may have significant effects on the outcomes of local elections and referenda.
Educational Culture and Political Values
What is the current practice of civic education?
In addition to questions about educational institutions and policy actors, conference participants discussed questions about citizenship and educational goals. Recent political science literature has suggested the importance of civic education in a nation's larger political life, yet participants were largely in agreement that the current practice of civic education in the United States is inadequate. Empirical evidence supports the conclusion that "in the making of citizens, [schools] are not doing their job effectively." Certain key features of citizenship education appear to be deficient, particularly in the creation of "a sense of obligation," and of "citizen identities." What has developed instead is a focus on individual rights to the exclusion of responsibility. Conference participants suggested a renewed focus on "democracy appreciation" in order to help students appreciate the role that conflict, deliberation, and compromise play in the process of addressing the problems that exist in American society.
How are students' political identities determined?
Conference participants agreed that the creation of citizen identities involves much more than a textbook curriculum, and that one needs to incorporate the role of institutions and school practices in an analysis of the formation of political preferences and identities. Discussion ranged from the philosophical, in the contrast between John Stuart Mill's emphasis on the importance of political participation in educating the citizen and a general lack of participation in school politics, to the institutional, in the potential for a school voucher system to fragment the polity into enclaves. What emerged was a consensus about the need to look at the role that schools play in providing the kinds of experiences that foster participatory citizenship. Can one, for example, "teach democratic civic ideals and have kids take them seriously when they go through gun detectors, and when they walk down corridors where television sets watch their every movement?" Does the fostering of participatory citizenship rest primarily on the civic curriculum, or does institutional structure play a determinative role?
What are the goals of education?
Participants were highly critical of the possibility of research which assumes that goals are linearly and clearly transformed into policies, suggesting instead an understanding of educational goals that incorporates the local political and economic conditions of the students. Do inner city teachers, for example, have different goals for their students than suburban teachers? Given the specific socio-economic conditions urban students face, should their teachers have different goals? What are citizens' goals in general for our schools? Are these goals different from those of educational experts, policy actors, or interest groups? If so, what are the implications? Conference participants suggested a survey of the educational philosophies and goals which citizens hold for their children, centered around the question, "What defines excellence?" A focus group component to the survey was also suggested, to capture the significant diversity of opinion among American citizens.
Key Themes Emerging From the Discussions
Insufficient base of evidence and knowledge in many areas.
Conference participants were nearly unanimous in their observation that many of the most fundamental relationships in the politics of education are poorly understood. While great attention has been paid lately to debating the merits of specific policy proposals, like vouchers and national testing, little is known about the political processes that shape the form and content of reform proposals. The politics of education is what R. Douglas Arnold has termed an "undertilled" field in American politics, with many interesting possibilities but little developed literature. Researchers, participants noted, "have largely confined their studies to determining how politics affects specific policy outcomes. Other functions of politics, such as mobilizing citizen participation, serving as a focal point for deliberation, and exposing participants to the values and interests of others, have largely been ignored." How citizens form preferences in education and translate them into policy outcomes is largely unknown. Moreover, there has been very little comparative and cross-national research that examines the politics of education.
Conference participants offered a variety of rationales to explain why political scientists have not conducted a great deal of research on education issues. They cited problems with available data, difficulties generalizing from findings, and negative perceptions within their discipline about the value of research on education. Despite these obstacles, participants noted that significant possibilities exist for applying political science research paradigms to education. The "new-institutionalism," which attempts to explain the politics that produce certain kinds of institutions as well as the consequences of those institutions, appears particularly promising.
The importance of context in educational research.
The need to incorporate the social, political, and economic contexts within which educational organizations operate was endorsed by virtually all of the conference participants. Several individuals also suggested that the focus of research being conducted by political scientists should be expanded beyond evaluation of policy/program effectiveness to include analyses of the political processes involved in generating policy outcomes. Such a shift in emphasis would draw on the strengths of political science as a discipline, namely its ability to illuminate the intersection of actors and interests in the actual implementation of educational reforms. "Our main contribution in political science," according to one participant, "is probably going to be not in designing cures, but in explaining the politics that has helped produce current results."
Despite broad agreement among participants about the need to shift the focus of research, there was considerable debate among conference participants about the proper contextual focus for a study of educational institutions, given uncertainty about the relative contributions of institutional factors, such as school organization, and contextual factors, like students' backgrounds. While some participants stressed the role of institutions in producing educational outcomes, others cited evidence dating back to the Coleman Report that a student's socio-economic status plays a much larger role in his or her educational attainment than the design or operation of his or her school. The increasingly isolated character of urban poverty has likely augmented these effects, though research remains to be done.
Both normative and empirical approaches to the study of education might benefit from a more contextual approach. The behaviors and effects of policy actors on the political process might depend, at least in part, on the racial, ethnic, and socio-economic conditions of the community being studied. How, for example, do local economic conditions influence the role of teachers' unions in structuring policy or the agendas of the unions themselves? Do unions in areas that are experiencing economic decline focus more on seniority and job concerns than on issues such as class size? Discussions of civic education and citizenship might also benefit from this approach. Participants noted that " ‘citizenship’ must be construed in contexts that are social and concrete rather than solitary and abstract." Research, for example, needs to explore the segregated nature of civil society and ascertain the differences between definitions of citizenship among the African-American community and other segments of American society.
The need to explicitly link normative and empirical questions.
The results of the discussions and presentations suggest that schools may be unique to the extent that, unlike other governmental institutions, they are in the business of creating political preferences and supporting or challenging particular value systems. This connection argues strongly for a research agenda that links questions of values and goals with analyses of institutional design and implementation. Given the processes of democratic government, children are often "socialized in ways that are responsive to the political pressures of the time." It may be incorrect, according to this perspective, to assume that goals will easily translate into outcomes given the political processes involved in interest aggregation within a democratic system. It may be equally insufficient, however, to design policy options to improve schools without realizing that this involves fundamental value judgements about the qualities and character of citizenship. What is needed, therefore, is more research about linkages, between the design of school reform and the activities of individual teachers, between citizens' preferences and the institutions which both determine and are determined by those preferences, and between the worthiness of educational goals and the process by which we put those goals into practice. Participants acknowledged that establishing links between empirical and normative research is difficult, but endorsed efforts to move in this direction.
A Note from the Spencer Foundation
The Spencer Foundation sponsors occasional conferences to stimulate research on important issues in education. We thank Jennifer Hochschild and Richard Merelman who helped organize this Conference on Political Science and Education Research, Scott Abernathy for his role in writing this report, and the individuals who participated (see attached listing) for their good work and contributions. We hope that interested researchers will find the theoretical, methodological, and topical issues raised at the conference thought-provoking. The Spencer Foundation welcomes well-designed research proposals on the issues and ideas discussed in this report.