Abstract
This article tests whether the form of decision-making used in school environments affects pupils’ views on the legitimacy of the decisions made, and of the decision-making procedure. Building on political science theory on democratic decision-making, it compares pupils’ reactions towards decisions made by pupil councils, by pupils via referendum, and by the teaching staff. The data come from a series of randomized scenario-style experiments in which participants (Swedish pupils involved in upper secondary education) were exposed to a questionnaire describing a decision-making situation. The results show that the form of decision-making used matters for pupils’ acceptance of the decision-making procedure, but not necessarily for their willingness to accept the outcome of decisions. Pupil referenda in particular were effective in creating procedural legitimacy.
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Notes
To make our point we are simplifying the procedural position. For an introduction to more complex reasoning, see, for example, Held (2006).
The correlation (Pearson’s r) between the two indexes is fairly high (the average for all six experiments is .62 with a high of .70 and a low of .58). However, the principal components analyses accomplished (varimax rotation, eigenvalues between 0.8 and 1.0) all produce the two expected factors.
In the initial three experiments some participants were told that decision X was taken while some were told that decision Y was taken, meaning that there were two kinds of winners and two kinds of losers. In the three later experiments (all built on the question of whether to ban religious symbols), all participants were told that the decision made was to ban religious symbols, meaning that there was one kind of winners and one kind of losers.
A series of tests shows that the processes of randomization worked well. In fact, none of the five variables that were tested in each of the six experiments (gender, political interest, left-right opinion, social class and ethnicity) showed statistically significant differences with the threshold set at p < .10.
The hypothesis is tested by means of a two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and a 2 (win/lose) x 3 (decision form) factorial design.
The difference between the teaching staff decision and the pupil council decision in the mobile phone study is the non-significant exception (difference of means = 0.31; p = .41).
In the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Axel Gosseries (2005) makes the interesting point that “we do not have today a clear theory telling us why we should have secret ballots for electors and open votes in plenary parliamentary sessions.”
We have again conducted a two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) of a 2 (type of discussion) x 2 (decision form) factorial design.
We also checked for possible interaction effects of the outcome variable (win/lose). However, none of the four interaction effects with the outcome variable involved (one from a two-way analysis of variance and three from a three-way analysis of variance) are statistically significant.
The important exception is, of course, the United States, where a majority of the states have some kind of recall procedure at the state and/or local level, which provides the voters with the possibility to remove and replace elected officials.
At the end of both scenarios some pros and cons for the two forms of pupil councils were presented.
This analysis as well as the following one are based on a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA).
Once again, this time there are no signs of an interaction effect between the form of decision-making chosen and the outcome variable. In other words, the difference (and non-difference, respectively) in acceptance between decision-making with bounded and unbounded mandates is more or less the same among winners as among losers.
Also this time, the scenarios were concluded with a presentation of some pros and cons for each form of decision-making.
Once again, we checked the results for potential interaction effects of the decision outcome variable (win/lose) but without success. In other words, the differences in acceptance among pupils between the three forms of decision-making outlined in Table 4 is the same among winners as among losers.
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Acknowledgement
The authors want to thank Ola Jodal, Martin Johansson, Jakob Lindahl, Erika Litzén and Anders Sundell for their excellent research assistance, and Mikael Alexandersson, Klas Andersson, Carl Dahlström, Anders Fredriksson, Maria Jarl, Erik Moberg and Daniel Naurin for valuable comments and suggestions on an earlier draft of this article.
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Gilljam, M., Esaiasson, P. & Lindholm, T. The voice of the pupils: an experimental comparison of decisions made by elected pupil councils, pupils in referenda, and teaching staff. Educ Asse Eval Acc 22, 73–88 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11092-009-9084-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11092-009-9084-0