American Meritocracy and School Spending
This research builds on the existing literature examining public opinion for school spending. Most of the research focuses on connecting various demographic identity markers to one’s opinion on school spending. This paper builds on that question to examine whether a belief in the American Meritocracy is related to school spending. Using school spending as an example of a public good, this research focuses more deeply on one of the most widespread public institution in the U.S. The most recent General Social Survey asks two questions this research used to get a sense of public opinion on both school spending and belief in the meritocracy. Because those who tend to believe in the meritocracy also tend towards a more individualist paradigm of American society, and because those who tend towards more individualist paradigms are less likely to support funding for public goods, I expect the research to show those who believe in the meritocracy are less likely to support school spending. Moving forward, this research can be used to examine differential tax efforts from various communities and individuals, and how to capitalize on citizens’ values and ideals to convince them to either maintain their level of support, increase or decrease it.
