Educational equality in the twenty-first century: white voter conflict over integration and community control

ABSTRACT Using an original survey experiment, this paper explores voter preference formation on competing dimensions of educational equality. In March 2012, residents of Evanston, IL voted on a ballot referendum that would levy taxes earmarked for building a new school in a historically Black neighborhood that has not had a neighborhood school since racial integration of the school district in the late 1960s. Competing visions of equality as either integration or community control were at the heart of the Evanston referendum debate; maintaining city-wide racial integration of all schools was pitted against providing equal access for all to a local school in their own neighborhood. This paper specifically focuses on how white voters, who often hold undue influence in education policy-making, form their preferences on an issue that has a significant racial impact. I find that priming and shifting context affect preference formation on both equality and this local policy question.