Socioeconomic Status, Race, and Public Support for School Integration

Polling data routinely indicate broad support for the concept of diverse schools, but integration initiatives-both racial and socioeconomic-regularly encounter significant opposition. We leverage a nationally representative survey experiment to provide novel evidence on public support for integratio...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Deven Carlson (Author), Elizabeth Bell (Author)
Format: Book
Published: SAGE Publishing, 2021-02-01T00:00:00Z.
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Summary:Polling data routinely indicate broad support for the concept of diverse schools, but integration initiatives-both racial and socioeconomic-regularly encounter significant opposition. We leverage a nationally representative survey experiment to provide novel evidence on public support for integration initiatives. Specifically, we present respondents with a hypothetical referendum where we provide information on two policy options for assigning students to schools: (1) a residence-based assignment option and (2) an option designed to achieve stated racial/ethnic or socioeconomic diversity targets, with respondents randomly assigned to the racial/ethnic or socioeconomic diversity option. After calculating public support and average willingness-to-pay, our results demonstrate a clear plurality of the public preferring residence-based assignment to the racial diversity initiative, but a near-even split in support for residence-based assignment and the socioeconomic integration initiative. Moreover, we find that the decline in support for race-based integration, relative to the socioeconomic diversity initiative, is entirely attributable to White and Republican respondents.
Item Description:2332-8584
10.1177/2332858420986864