When was the election again? : an exploratory case study understanding the role of dissatisfaction and media on the Kansas City School Board election.
| dc.contributor.advisor | Foster, Marquita D. | |
| dc.creator | Dickerson, Danielle F., 1994- | |
| dc.creator.orcid | 0009-0004-0248-9636 | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2024-07-17T13:58:20Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2024-07-17T13:58:20Z | |
| dc.date.created | 2023-08 | |
| dc.date.issued | 2023-08 | |
| dc.date.submitted | August 2023 | |
| dc.date.updated | 2024-07-17T13:58:21Z | |
| dc.description.abstract | School boards play a critical role in our representative democracy in the United States, and their policies directly influence the constituents they serve. School boards are the largest group of representative officials, with over 90,000 individuals serving on an elected board (Wilson, 2020). Yet, locally and nationally, school boards have some of the lowest voter turnout numbers of any election (Silva, 2019). Previous research has primarily focused on voter turnout in national elections. School board research has had a quantitative lens to prove turnout numbers and demographic information of voters (Berry & Howell, 2007); therefore, it was important to assess voter turnout in school board elections through a qualitative lens. The qualitative methodology serves to better understand voter perceptions about their choices to participate in school board elections. While qualitative studies have been conducted, they have focused on either school boards themselves or the dissatisfaction levels of voters (Ford & Ihrke, 2016; 2020). The exploratory single case study used media documents representing the information provided to voters and nine participant interviews with three voters and three non-voters to better understand the 2021 Kansas City school board election. The study explored how local media and dissatisfaction theory affected voter turnout and voter and non-voter motivation. Data analysis was conducted using both thematic and framework analysis. The study used three research questions to guide media document and interview data analysis. The three major themes highlighted election participation, local media’s impact, and the presence of dissatisfaction theory. The first theme found that voters in the 2021 Kansas City school board election had little access to information about the election but also had little knowledge of the purpose of school boards. The second theme found that local media provided little coverage of the 2021 school board election, and when media was distributed, it provided little information to voters. The third theme found that voters had more knowledge of the Kansas City Public School District (KCPS) than they did about the Kansas City school board. Ultimately, the study found dissatisfaction in the community, but it did not motivate voters to participate in the election. | |
| dc.format.mimetype | application/pdf | |
| dc.identifier.uri | ||
| dc.identifier.uri | https://hdl.handle.net/2104/12782 | |
| dc.rights.accessrights | No access – contact librarywebmaster@baylor.edu | |
| dc.title | When was the election again? : an exploratory case study understanding the role of dissatisfaction and media on the Kansas City School Board election. | |
| dc.type | Thesis | |
| dc.type.material | text | |
| local.embargo.lift | 2025-08-01 | |
| local.embargo.terms | 2025-08-01 | |
| thesis.degree.department | Baylor University. Dept. of Curriculum & Instruction. | |
| thesis.degree.grantor | Baylor University | |
| thesis.degree.name | Ed.D. | |
| thesis.degree.program | Learning & Organizational Change | |
| thesis.degree.school | Baylor University |
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