Schools and Attitudes Toward Economic Equality

Abstract

Do policies that shape equality in schools have effects on the type of society and polity that the citizens educated in them want? This paper examines this question by analyzing variation in the English schooling experiences using the British Cohort Study and British Panel Study. It shows that the social environment of schooling affects adults’ attitudes to fairness and Conservative vote choice, but that policies targeting these social environments have weak effects. The paper theorizes that actual policy feedback in education is often limited, because the effects of policies on school experiences are mediated by the behaviors of other actors on the ground.