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Does the Meeting Style Matter? The Effects of Exposure to Participatory and Deliberative School Board Meetings

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 May 2021

JONATHAN E. COLLINS*
Affiliation:
Brown University
*
Jonathan Collins, Assistant Professor, Education Department, Brown University, jonathan_collins@brown.edu.

Abstract

Would public meetings incite more civic engagement if they were structured in ways that are simply more engaging? I addressed this question by conducting an original survey with an oversample of racial and ethnic minorities and individuals from low-income households. The survey featured a randomized experiment in which each study participant was shown a short clip of an actual school board meeting that was (1) a standard meeting with no public participation, (2) a meeting with public participation, or (3) a meeting with deliberation (public participation followed by a reasoned response from the school board). The experience of viewing the more participatory and deliberative school board meetings led to increased trust in local officials and a stronger willingness to attend school board meetings in the future. This study has significant implications for civic engagement, local politics, and public school governance.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Political Science Association

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