Do Street‐Level Bureaucrats Discriminate Based on Religion? A Large‐Scale Correspondence Experiment among American Public School Principals

Authored by onlinelibrary.wiley.com and submitted by smurfyjenkins

Although public administration scholars have long studied discrimination on the basis of race/ethnicity, class, and gender, little to no research exists on whether street‐level bureaucrats provide differential services based on the religious identity of their constituents. This article reports the results from a large‐scale correspondence study of street‐level bureaucrats in the American public school system. The authors emailed the principals of a large sample of public schools and asked for a meeting, randomly assigning the religious (non)affiliation of the family. To get at potential causal mechanisms, religious belief intensity was also randomly assigned. The findings show evidence of substantial discrimination against Muslims and atheists on a par with, and sometimes larger than, the racial discrimination found in previous studies. These individuals are substantially less likely to receive a response, with discrimination growing when they signal that their beliefs are more intense. Protestants and Catholics face no discrimination unless they signal that their religious beliefs are intense.

hackenstuffen on September 3rd, 2020 at 16:09 UTC »

I read through the study results and didn’t see an example of the email wording; did anyone else find an example email the researchers used?

yoyomamatoo on September 3rd, 2020 at 15:39 UTC »

American public school principals, if you wondered.

Edit: Aight peeps, I wasn't being facetious. I added it because in a field study, location is crucial and OP omitted it maybe to economize on the title.

LDan613 on September 3rd, 2020 at 15:38 UTC »

on a par with, and sometimes larger than, the racial discrimination

This was a bit surprising to me. I would expect to be on par but not greater than racism, as religion is less immediately visible than race. Maybe because of the method used.