Solving the Collective Action Problem

Abstract

While the characteristics of the neighborhood, school, and individual gentry parents (GPs) outlined in chapter 3 appear pivotal to whether a segregated school can attract GPs to start the integration process, there is an additional question that most of the Innovator and Early Adopter GPs in this study grappled with prior to entering their Stage 0 school: can we solve the collective action problem? The collective action problem is a situation in which everyone in a given group has a choice between two alternatives—A and B, and if everyone in the group chooses the alternative that is individualistically rational, choice A, the outcome will be worse for everyone involved than it would be if they were all to chose alternative B (Hardin 1982).