Department of Sociology the University of Texas at Austin, 305 E 23rd St, A1700, RLP 3.306, Austin, TX, 78712, USA.
Department of Education Studies and Political Science, Davidson College, Box 7124, Davidson, NC, 28035, USA.
Soc Sci Med. 2023 Jun;327:115915. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2023.115915. Epub 2023 Apr 17.
COVID-19 drastically changed the school choice landscape as families considered schools with varying public health protocols as well as academic and demographic characteristics. Our understanding of families' preferences during the pandemic is limited, however, because it primarily derives from surveys asking parents about a single school characteristic.
We aimed to understand how families' preferences for schools' racial composition and public health policies may interdepend.
We conducted an original school choice survey experiment with U.S. White parents in August 2021. Parents indicated their willingness to enroll their student in hypothetical schools with experimentally randomized school quality ratings, racial and socioeconomic demographics, and COVID mitigation strategies (i.e. instructional modalities, mask and vaccination mandates).
We find novel causal evidence that White parents' preferences for schools' racial demographics and public health policies are interdependent. Among otherwise similar schools, parents expressed stronger preferences to avoid Black, Latinx, and Asian schools when there were fewer COVID mitigation policies. Relatedly, parents required more stringent COVID protocols for their children to attend predominantly Black, Latinx, and Asian schools while showing no preferences for COVID policies among predominantly White schools. The interdependence of preferred racial demographics and public health polices was amplified among White parents who held stigmatizing beliefs about Asian populations carrying the COVID virus and pro-White sentiments. Although Democrats expressed stronger preferences for schools with more COVID mitigation strategies than Republicans, for White parents across the political spectrum school racial composition and COVID mitigation preferences interdepended.
This study suggests families may leverage flexible student assignment policies and schools of choice to enroll in or avoid schools based on both preferred public health policies and racial demographics. Districts should consider how adopting strong public health policies during infectious disease outbreaks may help mitigate hardened racial avoidance and school racial segregation.
COVID-19 极大地改变了学校选择的格局，因为家庭在考虑具有不同公共卫生协议以及学术和人口特征的学校。然而，我们对家庭在大流行期间的偏好的了解有限，因为它主要来自于询问父母关于单一学校特征的调查。
我们旨在了解家庭对学校种族构成和公共卫生政策的偏好如何相互依存。
我们于 2021 年 8 月对美国白人父母进行了一项原始的学校选择调查实验。父母表示愿意让他们的学生入读具有实验性随机学校质量评级、种族和社会经济人口统计学以及 COVID 缓解策略（即教学模式、口罩和疫苗接种规定）的假设学校。
我们发现了关于白人父母对学校种族构成和公共卫生政策的偏好相互依存的新的因果证据。在其他方面相似的学校中，当 COVID 缓解政策较少时，父母表示更强烈的意愿避免黑人、拉丁裔和亚裔学校。同样，父母希望他们的孩子在以黑人和拉丁裔为主的学校就读时，要有更严格的 COVID 协议，而在以白人为主的学校就读时，则不需要 COVID 协议。在对亚洲人携带 COVID 病毒的观念存在污名化且持有亲白情绪的白人父母中，对偏好的种族构成和公共卫生政策的相互依存关系更为强烈。尽管民主党人比共和党人更强烈地偏好具有更多 COVID 缓解策略的学校，但对于整个政治光谱的白人父母来说，学校的种族构成和 COVID 缓解偏好是相互依存的。
这项研究表明，家庭可能会利用灵活的学生分配政策和选择学校的机会，根据首选的公共卫生政策和种族构成来入读或避免学校。各区应考虑在传染病爆发期间采取强有力的公共卫生政策，这可能有助于减轻僵化的种族回避和学校种族隔离。
