Theory and Research Needs in the Study of American Educational Politics
| Published date | 01 January 1970 |
| Pages | 53-87 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb009645 |
| Date | 01 January 1970 |
| Author | FREDERICK M. WIRT |
| Subject Matter | Education |
THE JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION 53
VOLUME VIII, NUMBER 1 MAY, 1970
Theory and Research Needs in the Study of
American Educational Politics
FREDERICK M. WIRT
This article employs a system analytic framework to categorize
the available research literature on the politics of education in
order to explain the inter-relationship of private and public
interests and of different levels in primary and secondary
American schools. The objectives are several: to explain and
develop the analytical framework of David Easton; to illustrate
its heuristic utility by categorizing empirically-based research
within the components of that framework, and to suggest and
encourage future research directions in the subject.
Education has escaped application of traditional policy analysis
in America because educators have convinced scholars and lay-
men that they are "non-political," a label which even most
political scientists have accepted without challenge. However,
during the 1960s, a few scholars in education and political
science began to apply political analytical methods to public
school conflict. This research has begun to change perceptions
of education and to provide a beginning set of research projects
whose data support tentative generalization about the policy-
making process and the total system of public schools. This
orientation is bound to increase because of increasing national
government intervention in local schools, both through integra-
tion and financial policies. These have provoked growing con-
flict locally over the proper direction of school policies.
In this article, we see how such stress is transmitted in the form
of "demands" and "supports" into the "political system", that
persistent social mechanism known in all societies in different
forms provides an "authoritative allocation of values and re-
sources". The political system, in this case public school bodies,
"converts" such "inputs" into "outputs" of public policy, which
in their administration create outcomes which later cause a
"feedback" into the political system as the material for new
policy demands. For each component of this Eastonian system,
this article examines relevant research, providing an extensive
annotated bibliography. From this review, it is possible to sug-
gest lines of needed research.
DR. FREDERICK M. WIRT is Lecturer in Education and Research Political
Scientist, Institute of Governmental Studies, University of California, Berkeley.
He holds the degrees of B.A. from De Pauw University and M.A. and Ph.D.
from the Ohio State University. Dr. Wirt has published extensively in the
field of the politics of education. He is a member of numerous political science
associations.
54 Journal of Educational Administration
INTRODUCTION
By a mutual but unspoken and longstanding agreement, both
American citizens and scholars have decided that the world of
education was unrelated to the world of politics. Such a judgment
seems particularly difficult to grasp, given our almost unique
system of selecting local school boards by elections and deciding
local school policy by referendum. But while election and referen-
dum might be judged "political" for other policies, in the educa-
tional policy area, Americans have proceeded on the assumption
of magic that one can change an object's quality by giving it a
different name.
Over a decade ago, Eliot advised political scientists why such
education was political, at the same time calling for scholarly
research along many lines.1 His agenda of research is a still
highly valuable prod to scholarship because so few scholars have
dealt with his suggestions. But recent signs suggest that the
rivulet of research on the politics of education which we knew
in the 1960's will in the next decade become a flood. The reason
for this is that perspectives on education have changed as a con-
sequence of national policies of aiding education. The point is
not that the school system suddenly became politicized. Rather
it is that more have become aware of this political quality because
of publicity over state-local demands for financial assistance, the
passage and administration of massive and growing federal aid
programs, national efforts to eliminate racial imbalance, and
increasingly bitter contests locally to wrest school control into
the hands of aroused groups.
Our purpose in this paper is not to argue why education should
be viewed politically.2 But it is to explore the need for more use-
ful theoretical orientation of the research movement now getting
under way and, in the process, to indicate some of the knowledge
gaps which research might fill. Iannaccone has explained why
much needs to be done in such research.3 When education is a
"closed system," its leaders maintain an isolation from politics in
order to free themselves from external political control and in
similar ways so to control the environment as to reduce change
within the system. Such effort was clearly functional for pro-
fessional educators, freeing them from the plurality of external
constraints and unsettling demands for change which character-
ize other social institutions which touch upon the political. But
so skilled were these educators that they were successful in get-
ting the community to adopt ostensibly nonpolitical concepts and
terms to apply to their work. As Eliot noted, a successful super-
intendent was one adept in "community relations," but "Why
not say frankly that he must be a good politician?"4
Theory and Research 55
As for political scientists, they unquestioningly accepted the
definition of the policy area provided by the educators. Not until
quite recently, then, have they begun to see in this area many of
the elements characterizing other policy-making fields; that is,
"Rosy O'Grady and the Colonel's lady are sisters under the
skin." The objectives of such research into the relationship of
politics and education are those of any research interest: des-
cription, explanation, prescription and evaluation. Most all that
we have in these areas, however, have been provided by students
of professional education, a few sociologists, and even fewer
political scientists.
Educational journals are filled with descriptions—of the opera-
tions of school systems and subsystems, of their actors and agents,
and of their laws and regulations. Further, such reality as here
described is invariably accompanied by normative evaluations,
that is, value statements about whether the object described is
worthwhile or not, often accompanied by recommendations to
change or retain the observed reality period. Further, description
and evaluation merge undefinably into prescription—recom-
mendations on how to change reality so as to achieve normative
objectives, how to close the gap between the real and the ideal.
What is least found is explanation—suppositions and supporting
evidence about the causes, consequences and interrelationships
of that which is found in reality. Causal theory of this kind is
found a great deal in the psychology of education, to some degree
in the sociology of education, and very little in educational
administration.5
When however, we ask how much of these four research objec-
tives are found in the study of the politics of education, the
answer must be very little, whether in the form of case studies
or aggregate data. The reasons for such omissions lie in the myth
of nonpolitical education, in the mass of data to be studied, and
in the lack of a directing empirical theory. Less is found about
educational politics than about politics of almost any other wide-
spread policy in American life, because the field is dominated
by the belief that one has satisfactorily described reality by saying
education is "above" politics. Under the mantle of such thinking,
descriptive research is regarded as misguided, and consequently
it becomes impossible to develop theoretical statements explain-
ing what exists. Further, there is a vast array of data to be dealt
with. We note the following: in 1962 there were almost 35,000
school districts in the United States, constituting the most numer-
ous elected units (38%) despite their sharp reduction during the
1950's—by 1970 the number was down to about 16,000;6 these
districts are holding elections for that position every year or so;
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