A considerable body of literature has identified a diversity gap related to the limited proportion of women and racial minorities among elected officials in Canada (Andrew et al., Reference Andrew, Biles, Siemiatycki, Tolley, Andrew, Biles, Siemiatycki and Tolley2008; Bashevkin, Reference Bashevkin and Bashevkin2009; Black, Reference Black, Andrew, Biles, Siemiatycki and Tolley2008; Black, Reference Black2011; Siemiatycki, Reference Siemiatycki, Collier and Molloy2016). Given the centrality of provincial and federal legislative bodies in the Canadian federal system, political scientists have tended to focus their attention on these institutions when investigating trends in political representation (Cutler and Matthews, Reference Cutler and Matthews2005; Taylor and Eidelman, Reference Taylor and Eidelman2010). However, these elected bodies make up a small minority of elected positions within Canada. In Ontario, for example, while there are 121 members of Parliament (MPs) elected to the federal legislature and 124 members of provincial Parliament (MPPs) elected to the provincial legislature, there are roughly 3,300 municipal council positions, as well as 688 school board trustee positions. All told, higher political offices account for less than 6 per cent of all elected positions in the province.
Research activity in the area of local electoral politics has increased significantly in recent years (Breux et al., Reference Breux, Couture and Koop2017; Lucas, Reference Lucas2015; McGregor et al., Reference McGregor, Moore and Stephenson2016; Siemiatycki, Reference Siemiatycki2011), with much academic effort focused on the representation of women or racial minorities. This work has broadly concluded that women and/or racial minorities are underrepresented in local government, as they are at other orders of government (Bird, Reference Bird2015; Bird et al., Reference Bird, Jackson, McGregor, Moore and Stephenson2016; Breux et al., Reference Breux, Jérôme Couture and Koop2018; McGregor et al., Reference McGregor, Moore and Stephenson2016; Spicer et al., Reference Spicer, McGregor and Alcantara2017; Tolley, Reference Tolley2011). However, despite the growing scholarly interest in Canadian local elections, there has been little attention paid to school boards and their elections (which are held concurrently with municipal elections). This scholarly oversight may stem from consistently low public visibility, low voter turnout and/or low levels of electoral competition due to high rates of acclamation and incumbency (McGregor and Lucas, Reference McGregor and Lucas2019). Whatever the reason, school boards are nevertheless important from both a policy and politics perspective (not to mention that they have budgets that range from $40 million to $3.3 billion; Government of Ontario, 2018).
While little empirical work in Canada has explored the link between school board politics and political career trajectories, school board elections are seen by some as political training grounds—a sort of political “farm team”—for higher office (Lorinc, Reference Lorinc2015). If it is the case that school boards act as a pathway into political life, school board elections have the potential to help close the representation gap for women and racial minorities. School board elections have relatively low barriers to entry (these include low nomination fees; the local nature of campaigning—and of service, if elected; and no requirement for party membership or nomination), which may make them particularly attractive as an entry point into politics for candidates from historically marginalized groups. Seeking and achieving local office can be particularly important for women and minority candidates. Jerome Black (Reference Black2000) highlights that women (including minority women) candidates tend to be relatively more qualified than their male (and white male) counterparts across a range of features, including educational attainment, professional background and involvement in community and interest groups. While he does not explore the specifics of past political experience, Black does note empirical support for a “compensation” model for women and visible minority candidates, which suggests that past political experiences matter more for underrepresented groups.Footnote 1 Thus, the political success of underrepresented groups at the level of local political offices could eventually lead to increases in their representation at higher orders of government, particularly if political parties use school boards as pools from which to pull potential candidates (Deckman, Reference Deckman2007; Duerst-Lahti, Reference Duerst-Lahti, Thomas and Wilcox1998).
Based on our aggregate-level data, it appears that women and racialized candidate success varies considerably at the school board level, with implications for our understanding of patterns of political success and representation. As has been consistently articulated in the literature (Bashevkin, Reference Bashevkin1985; O'Neill, Reference O'Neill2015), women candidates appear to do progressively worse electorally as we move up the hierarchy of elected offices. Based on our data (which we discuss in detail below), this trend is exacerbated by the inclusion of school board data. Women make up over 52 per cent of school board trustee positions, but their representation drops dramatically at higher orders of government (39.5% provincially and 33.9% federally).Footnote 2 Conversely, the trend line reverses for racial minorities. While racial minorities make up just 6 per cent of Ontario school board trustees, their representation increases at the provincial (23.4%) and federal (21.5%) orders, such that their representation is approaching their share of the provincial population (which currently is approximately 29%). These patterns seem to suggest that factors shaping political participation and representation are different for these two groups.
In this research note, we consider a series of questions that allow us to explore some of the roots of underrepresentation for women and racialized candidates. We first explore the literature on the representation gap, relying primarily on the literature on progressive ambition and recruitment as it relates to women and articulating some considerations for racialized candidates. In the second section, we describe the gender and racial composition of candidates and elected trustees in the 2018 school board elections in Ontario in order to determine how well women and racialized candidates fare in these elections. Finally, we draw upon survey data collected during the 2018 campaign in order to explore how candidate recruitment and progressive political ambition (that is, desire to run for higher political office) shape decisions to run. We thus describe not only the current state of representation in Ontario's school boards but also the extent to which these bodies may serve as a political launchpad for women and racial minorities in Ontario. We find that for these two groups, school board elections do not serve as a political entry point toward higher office; however, the reasons for this are different for each group.
The Representation Gap
Despite considerable gains in electoral outcomes, women and racialized communities continue to be chronically underrepresented in most political offices in Canada. Over several decades of research, political scientists have identified a host of structural and social factors that help to explain the representation gap. On the structural side of the equation, the representation gap has been linked to a variety of factors, including how political parties go about recruiting candidates, the way in which the incumbency advantage slows the replacement of “traditional” (white and male) politicians, and the underrepresentation of women and racial minorities in professional fields that enable the social network and security from which to launch political careers (Darcy et al., Reference Darcy, Welch and Clark1994; Duerst-Lahti, Reference Duerst-Lahti, Thomas and Wilcox1998). On the social side of the equation, the relative lack of women and racialized politicians in office can reinforce the view that a political career is not suited to such candidates. This is exacerbated by social beliefs regarding the toll that political careers can have on family (Fulton et al., Reference Fulton, Maestas, Maisel and Stone2006) and different perceptions with respect to how well qualified women and racialized candidates have to be in order to be competitive (Fox and Lawless, Reference Fox and Lawless2011)—not to mention the way in which the media can shape narratives around the acceptability of women and minority candidates for office (Tolley, Reference Tolley2015; Goodyear-Grant, Reference Goodyear-Grant2013).
As a potential entry point into elected politics, school board elections are unique in several ways. First, in Canada, school boards are nonpartisan and not affiliated with local, provincial or federal political parties; the absence of political parties in school board politics means there is no formal nomination process or internal party dynamics to contend with, which removes a barrier that can impede women and racial minorities from running for the office. While political parties are becoming more proactive in recruiting racial minorities, particularly in diverse ridings, Tolley (Reference Tolley2019) highlights that local party dynamics matter for this outcome: racialized candidates are much less likely to be nominated in ridings where the local riding association director is white. Meanwhile, political parties remain consistently less likely to encourage women to run relative to men (Lawless and Fox, Reference Lawless and Fox2005; O'Neill, Reference O'Neill2015; Cheng and Tavits, Reference Cheng and Tavits2011). Second, school board politics are remarkably uncompetitive, with high acclamation rates. This is particularly important for our expectations regarding the participation of women. Evidence from both survey research and experimental research suggests that the competitive nature of politics can be a significant deterrent to women candidates (Prusyers and Blais, Reference Pruysers and Blais2017; Preece and Stoddard, Reference Preece and Stoddard2015) but may shape the experience of racialized candidates in different ways. Finally, the features of local political success may help inform our understanding of the patterns of underrepresentation across all orders of government. From a recruitment perspective, trustees are potentially attractive future candidates for political parties at federal or provincial orders; trustees have some degree of public profile, have experience running a successful political campaign and have governance experience. Indeed, two Ontario premiers—Mike Harris and Kathleen Wynne—began their political careers as trustees, as did many other politicians,Footnote 3 so there is at least anecdotal evidence that school boards can serve as a stepping-stone for higher office. Understanding who runs and who wins in school board politics will provide new insight into this local office as a potential entry point into political careers. With these features in mind, this research note seeks to expand our understanding of political (under)representation. In particular, we seek to answer the question: Are women and minorities using school board elections as the first step toward higher office, and if so, are they able to access this entry point to elected politics in the same way?
Data
We evaluate these matters using two sources of data. First, we conducted a survey of school board trustee candidates who ran for office in the 2018 school board elections across Ontario.Footnote 4 The survey was distributed six weeks in advance of the election date and remained open for a two-week period following the election. The survey was successfully distributed by email to 1,370 individuals, of the total 1,530 candidates who ran for school board trustee across the four school board types in Ontario (the remaining candidates did not have either publicly available or active email addresses to send the survey link to). The 10-minute survey was distributed using the Qualtrics survey platform. The questionnaire (which was available in both English and French) covered a range of topics, including questions about personal motivations for running for school board trustee and progressive political ambition, as well as questions about demographic characteristics. The survey questions we employed can be found in online Appendix 1.
Of the 1,370 candidates who received the survey invitation, 418 (30.5%) completed the questionnaire. This response rate is not atypical of a survey of this nature, and this sample size is more than adequate for our purposes. Importantly, on key demographics, survey respondents were generally representative of the candidate pool as a whole, including gender,Footnote 5 race,Footnote 6 incumbency,Footnote 7 and election outcome.Footnote 8
In addition to the survey results, a team of research assistants coded several characteristics of almost all candidates—including gender, race, incumbency status and win/loss status. Two research assistants were tasked with coding these characteristics using publicly available information, and a comparison of their observations show a very high rate of consistency (giving us confidence in the validity of their observations).Footnote 9 Candidates were also coded for incumbency and acclamation, as well as final win/loss status. Using this approach, we were able to determine gender and race for nearly all candidates (97.9% and 88.7%, respectively).Footnote 10 We are, of course, cognizant of the limitations of this measurement approach, but given the paucity of research on this topic, we suggest that the benefits outweigh any concerns about coding.Footnote 11
Both gender and race are coded as binary variables. For survey respondents, gender is based upon self-identification (with standard “men” and “women” categories).Footnote 12 For other candidates, gender was coded on the basis of the perceptions of research assistants. The race variable is also binary in nature, and candidates are coded as being either “white” or “racialized”—again, this is based upon self-identification among survey respondents and upon the coding decisions of research assistants for other candidates who did not complete our survey. In this study, we use the term racialized to encompass both visible minority candidates and Indigenous candidates. Statistics Canada categorizes visible minority relative to the Canadian Employment Equity Act, which defines visible minorities as “persons, other than Aboriginal peoples, who are non-Caucasian in race or non-white in colour” (Statistics Canada, Reference Canada2016a). In the results reported here, we have included candidates who self-identify as Indigenous within the non-white category. Among the survey respondents, very few (1.7%) identified as Indigenous, making it infeasible to consider them as a separate group within the analysis.Footnote 13 Though the necessity of this simplification is regrettable, research suggests that Indigenous candidates face similar barriers to elected office as other racialized groups (Hunter, Reference Hunter2003; Tremblay, Reference Tremblay2003). By keeping these respondents in our sample, we can ensure that the perspectives of Indigenous candidates are reflected in the final results.
In the next section of this note, we turn to answer our research questions. First, we examine the share of candidates and electorally successful trustees who are identified as women or racial minorities, in order to determine how these shares compare to the population as a whole. Next, we conduct a series of t-tests, comparing the self-reported perspectives of women candidates (to male candidates) and of racialized candidates (to white candidates) with respect to their experiences of being encouraged or recruited to run and their progressive ambition toward other political positions.
Results
How do women and racialized candidates fare when seeking trustee positions? Figure 1 shows the share of candidates and trustees in 2018 by gender and race. These figures are compared to the Ontario population as a whole (based upon data from the 2016 national census), with the height of the bars indicating the share of the population represented by the group. While there are differences between boards (see online Appendix 2), we do not consider this issue thoroughly here, as there is no way to accurately compare the candidate and trustee pools to the population of each school board, as school board boundaries do not align with the geography of census reporting.
Figure 1 Candidate and Trustee Shares by Gender and Race
Perhaps the most striking result in this figure is that women do very well in school board politics, both in comparison to their share of the population and their representation at other orders of Canadian government. While men participate in school board elections as candidates in greater numbers (approximately 55.2% to 44.8%), women actually fared better electorally—securing more than half of the trustee positions in 2018. Such a finding suggests that women candidates have a much higher chance of winning than do their male counterparts. School boards are thus the only elected office in Canada where women outperform men.
The story for racialized candidates is dramatically different. This group is hugely underrepresented among elected trustees, despite a robust presence in the candidate pool. Accounting for 29.3 per cent of Ontario's population, racial minorities constituted 19.9 per cent of candidates but only 6 per cent of elected trustees. While this group runs at lower levels than one might expect based upon their share of the population, it is at the election stage where they are truly decimated—school board voters are simply not electing racialized candidates to trusteeships.
One factor that is almost certainly important in explaining candidate success is incumbent status. Incumbents in local politics are well known to have a significant advantage over challengers (Kushner et al., Reference Kushner, Siegel and Stanwick1997; Moore et al., Reference Moore, McGregor and Stephenson2017). This means that success in 2018, for all candidates, was heavily influenced by challenger or incumbent status prior to the election. Incumbency bias has been used to help explain the slow ascension of women and other underrepresented groups into political office (Fox and Lawless, Reference Fox and Lawless2014); however, in the case of school boards, incumbency bias actually appears to help women but hinders racialized candidates. The success found by women in 2018 is not new, as women had high rates of incumbency going into the election. Though only 42 per cent of nonincumbent challengers were women, a full half of all sitting incumbents were women, which goes a long way toward explaining the success of this group in 2018. By comparison, only 5.5 per cent of incumbents were racialized. At the same time, 28.5 per cent of nonincumbent challengers fall into this category, which is a figure that matches the group's share of the population almost exactly. While racial minorities are apparently eager to participate in school board politics, incumbency effects are clearly dampening their electoral chances.
Recruitment and progressive ambition
Using data from the candidate survey, we turn now to consider how it is that candidates decide to put their name forward for office: Are women and racial minorities encouraged to enter school board politics? While some candidates are encouraged to run by others (either by formal officials—such as outgoing trustees—or by family and friends), other candidates report running of their own volition. In essence, the question we consider here is whether there is a relationship between being encouraged to enter local politics and either gender or race. It should be noted that the recruitment variable included here is broader in nature than most conceptualizations of political recruitment; school board politics do not have a strong partisan link, and so formal recruitment (by a federal or provincial political party) is not a substantive factor in the electoral architecture. Table 1 contains the results of this analysis, showing the share of candidates who were encouraged by others to run.Footnote 14 We also consider whether the differences between the groups are statistically significant, on the basis of independent sample t-tests.
Table 1 Candidate Recruitment by Gender and Race
***p < 0.01, **p < 0.05, *p < 0.10
Table 1 shows that women candidates are considerably more likely than their male counterparts to report having been encouraged by others to seek a school board position. This could reflect a tendency for men to seek elected office based on their own ambitions or talent self-assessment, while women reach out to consult and take motivation from the encouragement of others (Crowder-Meyer, Reference Crowder-Meyer2013; Fulton et al., Reference Fulton, Maestas, Maisel and Stone2006). While Black (Reference Black2000) found marginal differences supporting greater encouragement for women and racialized women candidates, this result stands in contrast to the literature on political recruitment at other orders of government, which generally finds women are less likely than men to be recruited for political campaigns (Cheng and Tavits, Reference Cheng and Tavits2011). By comparison, white and racialized candidates are no different from each other in this respect.
We have thus far shown that women are relatively likely to be encouraged to run for trustee, and that when they do, they are comparatively likely to win. By comparison, racialized candidates do not appear to experience the same type of active recruitment; fewer racialized candidates run (both in real and relative terms), and when they do run, they are very unlikely to win. The next step in considering the role that local politics may play in reducing the gaps in underrepresentation is to consider whether gender or ethnicity are related to ambition beyond school boards: Do candidates view school board politics as an entry point into political experience and service, or is it the final stop in political ambition? To that end, survey respondents were asked if they had any interest in running for other positions in the future, and options included positions not only at the local level but also at the provincial and federal levels. Table 2 shows answers to this question on the basis of gender and racialization of candidates, allowing us to determine if either of these factors is related to the desire to hold elected office other than that of trustee. Again, we use t-tests to determine if differences are significant.
Table 2 Political Aspirations by Gender and Race
***p < 0.01, **p < 0.05, *p < 0.10
There are several findings of note in Table 2. First, we see that race has no relationship to political ambition among school board candidates; all other things equal, race is unrelated to a desire to move up to higher political offices. This is an important null result for two reasons. First, it suggests strongly that ambition (or a lack thereof) cannot account for poor performance of racialized candidates at any level of government in Canada. Racialized candidates are putting themselves forward for school board elections, and they report levels of ambition for higher office similar to those of their white counterparts. Second, these results speak to a challenge for racialized candidates actually realizing their political ambitions for higher office. If school boards do indeed serve as a launchpad to higher office, the fact that only 6 per cent of trustees elected are racial minorities means that this pathway remains largely closed as a route to political office. All of this, of course, hinges upon the assumption that political parties either recruit from current and past school board candidates and/or that the experiences running in a local school board election act as a training ground for other orders of government. Though further research is required to better justify this assumption, as noted previously, there is at least anecdotal evidence in support of this claim.
In contrast to these null results, we do see differences between men and women with respect to a desire to serve as either a provincial or federal elected official (though there is no difference between these groups regarding other positions in municipal government). We see compelling evidence that men are more likely than women to want to progress past the local level.Footnote 15 This result mirrors work done in the US on school board members and progressive ambition in the state of Pennsylvania, in which the only significant difference between men and women candidates was progressive ambition for serving in the state legislature (Sweet-Cushman, Reference Sweet-Cushman2018). Thus, while women do extremely well in school board elections, the ambition gap means that their success in these contests has a limited effect upon success at higher orders of government. Put another way, women are less likely than men to view school board elections as just the first step in a career in politics.
Discussion
It is very well documented that women and racial minorities are underrepresented at the federal, provincial and municipal orders in Canada. To date, there has yet to be an examination of whether the same holds true of school boards. This omission is particularly problematic given that the patterns of representation in school boards politics run contrary to trends we see at other orders of government: women, in fact, do better in school board elections, while visible minority candidates (who have made considerable headway in provincial and federal politics) remain staunchly disadvantaged. This suggests that school boards do not serve as a political launchpad for either women or racial minorities but that the reasons for this failure are different for the two groups.
Though women perform exceptionally well in school board elections, we find no evidence to suggest that this will translate into success at other orders of government. Women are more likely than male candidates to be encouraged by others to run, they are relatively likely to be candidates (at least compared to federal and provincial elections), and when they do run, they are actually more likely to win than are men. However, women candidates for school board trustee are significantly less likely to report progressive ambition, with a general lack of interest in seeking either federal or provincial office.
The story for racial minorities is quite different. For them, school board politics introduce important structural barriers that limit the capacity of this local political office to propel them into higher political positions. Despite participating as school board candidates in strong numbers, very few racialized candidates eventually gain trustee positions. In part, the low level of racialized trustees may be linked to the geographic distribution of candidates. While women candidates were generally distributed evenly across school boards in Ontario, racial minorities ran in only 28 out of the 72 boards. In particular, minorities were heavily concentrated in the English public school boards in the Greater Toronto Area (where they also make up a comparatively large portion of the population). Even within these regions, however, these candidates significantly underperform when compared to their share of the population. Clearly, then, geography is not the only factor at play, and more work is needed to explore the barriers faced by racial minorities seeking trusteeships.
On an optimistic note, our data suggest that if racialized candidates do somehow become more competitive in school board elections, these contests could help propel them to higher office. Whereas women have comparatively little interest in moving past school boards, racialized candidates are no less ambitious than their white counterparts with respect to seeking higher office. The fact that so few minorities win school board races (and thus so few gain the invaluable experience that holding political office brings) renders school board elections an ineffective entry point to formal political careers. If minorities do manage to win school board positions in larger numbers, this may conceivably have a trickle-up effect in elections for higher office. At the same time, there is suggestive evidence that a lack of success at the school board level is not necessarily hampering the success of minorities at other orders of government. As noted above, the share of federal and provincial representatives who are racialized is much closer to the group's share of the population. Such a finding provides further evidence that school boards do not serve as a pipeline for this segment of the population, and it could also suggest that school board elections are viewed differently by—and serve different functions for—different segments of the population.Footnote 16
Conclusion
We have considered here, for the first time in Canada, the question of whether gender and race are related to performance, recruitment experience and future political ambition among candidates for school board election. While our work represents a substantial descriptive advancement on this topic, more work is needed to better understand the causes of our findings. To begin, there is most certainly value in multivariate analyses that consider the independent effects of gender and race, after accounting for a series of potentially confounding covariates. Are our findings regarding women, for example, driven by gender specifically or by some other factors that are related to both gender and election success, recruitment or ambition? As a first step in this direction, we have run a multivariate analysis using our survey sample, whereby the gender and race variables are included in a multivariate model, along with a series of sociodemographic controls (see online Appendix 3). This analysis reveals that the substantive conclusions of the bivariate analyses remain largely unchanged. Further research (perhaps using a larger dataset) should consider in more detail the controlled effects (or lack thereof) of our explanatory variables of interest and move toward better understanding the bivariate results observed here.
Given the stark contrast between the performance of women in school board and other politics, there is particular value in considering what it is about school board politics that leads women to perform so much better in school board elections than elsewhere. Our survey data provide some introductory insights into why this might be and suggest that women candidates may have stronger ties to schools and school board politics than do men. Respondents were asked if they had children in the school system and if they had a child with special needs. On both fronts, women scored comparatively high. Forty-seven per cent of women candidates reported having children in the school system, compared to only 36 per cent for men. Women were also substantially more likely than men to have a child (or children) with special needs; 21 per cent of women responded yes to this question, compared to only 12 per cent of men (note that both differences are significant at p < 0.05). These findings suggest that women may have different reasons than men candidates to participate in school board politics, which helps to explain their high levels of participation in these elections. This attachment to school board politics, in particular, could also help to explain why women have less ambition to move on to higher orders of government.
Other related questions are worthy of future consideration: Are school boards the electoral ghetto for women? Does the fact that political service remains “close to home” or the educational focus of trustee responsibility have particular resonance for women in a patriarchal order? Is it that higher-quality women candidates are drawn to this arena, or are voters more likely to support women in a role focused on education? Relatedly, why are women so frequently recruited for these positions, and why are women seemingly less likely to want to progress past the local level of politics? The questions requiring answers with respect to the performance of racialized candidates are different and perhaps more pressing, given the significant underrepresentation of this group on school boards: Why are so few racialized candidates successful in school board elections? Are voters less likely to support racialized candidates in elections where education is the focus? Does the nonpartisan nature of trustee elections (in which gender and ethnicity may become more important as voter cues) serve to benefit women but harm racial minorities? We are hesitant to speculate these matters based upon our data on candidates alone, as data from voters themselves are required to fully explore these matters. Insights from both feminist and critical race theory would further enrich analysis of the empirical dynamics at play. Nevertheless, the answers to these questions have important implications for patterns of representation at all orders of government in Canada.
Supplementary material
To view supplementary material for this article, please visit https://doi.org/10.1017/S0008423919001057.
