Getting Back to “Traditional” Education: Racialized Norms in School Governance

Previous research has demonstrated how policies and procedures governing community engagement within K–12 school districts can function as barriers to advancing racial equity. Much of this work suggests that K–12 school board meetings, purported to be democratic spaces of deliberation and public engagement to inform district-level policymaking, do not always serve that purpose. This qualitative study builds on this existing literature by exploring how racialized norms within K–12 school boards can shape the ways in which board members manage community engagement in contentious times. Drawing on insights from the theory of White Institutional Spaces, we describe how existing norms of order, balance, neutrality, and adherence to traditional hierarchies in school boards primarily function as ways to uphold the status quo and continue to operate to the detriment of marginalized communities.