Understanding the Complexity of Attitudes Toward Public Education: Predicting the Views of Teachers and Parents in France and in the United States Based on Social and Cultural Factors

Extending prior research related to attitude development and intra-attitudinal consistency, the current study aims to evaluate various factors that predict attitudes toward public education and understand how they impact the direction and consistency of participants’ attitudes. In an effort to develop our knowledge of the factors that predict these attitudes among members of differing populations, the researcher will administer surveys that assess the three components of participants’ attitudes as well as the factors that predict them to public school teachers and parents of students in the United States (US) and in France. It is predicted that considerations like social identity and the structure of the two education systems will affect participants’ attitudes differently depending on their role (teacher or student) and location (France or US), while other aspects, such as the status of the profession of the teacher and the public perceptions of public education, will impact all participants’ attitudes similarly. This research will allow for an understanding of both the direction and consistency of attitudes toward public education, hypothesizing consistent attitudes among parents and inconsistent attitudes among teachers, based on the number and types of factors each set of the population considers when formulating their attitudes. ATTITUDES TOWARD PUBLIC EDUCATION 4 Understanding the complexity of attitudes toward public education: Predicting the views of teachers and parents in France and the United States based on social and cultural factors The image of a high school classroom is not a difficult one for many of us to envision. Regardless of the city where we attended school, the year we graduated, or even the subject being taught, most of us picture a relatively similar scene: a teacher at the front of the room, pen in hand, eager to explain and answer questions; students seated with textbooks and papers spewed across restrictive, uncomfortable desks; analog clocks ticking away the seconds of each class period before the sound of the bell. And most of us have similar memories: the dread of entering a classroom unprepared for an exam; the curiosity sparked by the presence of a substitute teacher; and the joy and restlessness that inevitably arrives the last week (or more) before the end of each school year, as everyone, teachers and students alike, eagerly awaits the summer. Nearly every adult has had these experiences, having spent over 10,000 hours inside one classroom or another. So nearly every adult considers him/herself capable of critiquing and assessing the job of a teacher, of deciding what changes need to be implemented in the public education system, and of presenting an opinion on the success (or failure) of our schools. Everyone holds these opinions—students, parents, and teachers, alike—but how do they develop, what factors predict them, and how do they differ among populations? Through a consideration of historical perceptions of education systems in both France and the United States (hereafter referred to as US) in conjunction with current perspectives on the purpose, structure, and potential of public schools in each country as well as participants’ personal experiences with public education, this study will aim to offer a more complete picture of attitudes toward public education in the two nations. ATTITUDES TOWARD PUBLIC EDUCATION 5 Multiple factors are expected to influence components of both teachers’ and parents’ attitudes, including social identity related to education, perceptions of social and institutional support of teachers, and overall perceptions of the profession of teaching. In determining how participants differ according to these factors, it will be possible to predict the ways in which social and psychological factors correlate with both the direction and consistency of participants’ overall expressed attitudes. Understanding Attitudes: Components, Consistency, and Evaluation In day-to-day life, the word attitude is tossed around regularly: we talk about members of sports teams maintaining a positive attitude even after losing a match and we refer to moody teenagers as having perpetual bad attitudes. But in the field of psychology, attitude refers to more than just a person’s mental state, or the way one feels about something. An attitude, according to psychologists, has three main components: affect, the feelings or emotions a person holds toward something; cognition, the thoughts one carries about something; and behavior, the way one acts in relation to something (Eagly & Chaiken, 1998). The “something” referred to in these sentences is the attitude object, the person, place, thing, or idea associated with a component of a person’s attitude. In the case of this study, public education is the general attitude object, and nearly everyone—from the public in general, to teachers and students, to administration and government officials—holds a specific attitude toward public education (Cafferty, 1992). Although non-psychologists do not tend to distinguish among the three components of attitudes, these components are, in fact, essential to our understanding of attitudes because they allow for an examination of attitude consistency and inconsistency. The three ATTITUDES TOWARD PUBLIC EDUCATION 6 parts of a person’s attitude toward an attitude object need not always match. One could, for instance, detest the taste of bananas (negative affective component), but know that bananas contain potassium that is important for human health (positive cognitive component), and so eat a banana every morning with breakfast (positive behavioral component). Similarly, it is certainly possible to imagine a teacher with an inconsistent attitude toward public education—s/he could love her job and feel supported by her/his colleagues (positive affective component), but not agree with the new Common Core initiatives forcing her/him to change her/his curriculum (negative cognitive component), and still dedicate exorbitant amounts of time and energy to helping her/his students succeed (positive behavioral component). Or we could consider a parent with an inconsistent attitude—a father feels grateful for his public school education (positive affective component), but does not believe the public schools in his area will properly equip his children for higher education (negative cognitive component), and so decides to send his children to private school (negative behavioral component). Extensive psychological research has been dedicated to examining attitude components and intra-attitudinal consistency: whether the three components match or not. Even at the beginning of the 20 century, researchers were interested in determining if people’s expressed beliefs matched their actions. Richard LaPiere’s (1934) landmark study related to prejudice and discrimination toward Chinese communities in America revealed that often people’s beliefs and behaviors do not match. His study indicated that intraattitudinal inconsistency can result from social pressures or a desire to be perceived positively by others. Therefore, people might hold a certain attitude cognitively, but not act on it when given the opportunity to do so. ATTITUDES TOWARD PUBLIC EDUCATION 7 Intra-attitudinal inconsistency can also seem to appear when attitudes are measured at different levels of specificity. For instance, a person’s attitude about the efficacy of Supreme Court justices might be radically different from his/her attitude toward performing jury duty. On the surface, both of these attitudes are related to the concept of justice, but the level at which they are measured differs drastically. If a researcher were interested in determining Americans’ attitudes toward the justice system and s/he asked only about participants’ attitudes toward jury duty, we would not, or at least should not, accept the conclusions as a valid and accurate representation of Americans’ attitudes toward the justice system. In this case, the researcher has measured only one direct, personal aspect in which people interact with the justice system and has ignored other factors that could contribute to their overall attitudes, such as beliefs about the efficacy of the US’s Supreme Court justices, views on America’s approach to justice in relation to other nations, or the organization of the justice system as a whole. Attitude inconsistencies, therefore, could be perceived in areas where they do not exist, depending on the level of attitude one is measuring (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1977). By measuring only one level of someone’s attitude—be it broad and general or direct and specific—a researcher gains an incomplete picture of the complexity of said attitude. The current research will aim to determine both the direction and consistency of participants’ attitudes. In an effort to avoid uncovering a perceived inconsistency based on assessing only certain levels of participants’ attitudes toward public education, this study will measure varying levels of parents’ and teachers’ attitudes across attitude components. By evaluating many factors that could impact participants’ attitudes, ranging from direct, personal experiences and thoughts about one’s own school and district, to considerations ATTITUDES TOWARD PUBLIC EDUCATION 8 about states’ approaches to curricula and testing, to views on the education system’s efficacy overall, the researcher will aim to gain a valid representation of participants’ attitudes. Furthermore, previous research indicates that consistent attitudes are expected in situations where people feel particularly strongly about the attitude object and, therefore, have dedicated a large amount of thought and energy to developing a consistent attitude (Eagly & Chaiken, 2014). Strong attitudes exist especially in circumstances where the attitude object is personally relevant or where people have direct experience with the attitude object, two conditions that