Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Citizens play an essential role in the production of public services; their actions shape the scope, direction and quality of many governmental programs and contribute to broad civic health.

Collective co-production, conducted both with and for the benefit of the community at large, is likely to both build upon and sustain broader social capital within local settings. Put more precisely, co-production not only more likely in contexts characterized by strong social ties; co-production can also create new and/or stronger ties among individual citizens.

Given co-production’s benefits, we need to know more about the social and institutional conditions under which co-production is most likely to occur. In recent decades the United States has experienced significant social and structural changes. Among these are the increased marketization of public services, and the increased racial and economic diversity of the citizenry. This paper examines co-production in light of these two changes.

Research on social capital, co-production, marketization and diversity has been mixed. Both advocates of the social capital construct and critics acknowledge that social capital’s benefits may not accrue equally to all groups (Hero 2003) and that diversity may mute civic engagement (Putnam 1999). Prior research (Destler 2016) has found that the relationship between diversity and co-production varies both by the intensity of the activity demanded and by the racial or ethnic identity of the citizen. We know less about how these relationships are affected by marketization, which increases client opportunities for exit and voice.

Hirschman’s canonical work (1970) suggests that exit options in market-based systems can diminish client’s use of loyalty and voice. Others (e.g. Schneider et al 1997) suggest that choice will increase ownership of public systems and thus heighten incentives for co-production. Empirical findings (e.g. Bifulco & Ladd 2006; Cox & Wilco 2008; Tedin & Wehir 2011) have been mixed; moreover, none of these studies considers the effects of market systems in the face of racial and economic diversity.

Toward that end, this paper asks:

To what extent and how does school choice affect the relationship between individual characteristics, school demographics and a parent’s propensity to co-produce in schools?

It answers this question by analyzing data from the 2007 and 2010 waves of the National Household Education Survey (n=27,500), which queries parents nationwide about their involvement in their children’s education and schools. Employing school fixed effects and controlling for a range of parent characteristics (including a parent’s engagement in educational activities outside of schools), it finds that parents of children who attend schools of choice behave differently vis-à-vis school diversity than do parents whose children attend neighborhood schools.

Given the continued move towards market systems in education and many other government sectors, it is important to understand how these systems affect co-production both independently and in conjunction with other societal factors, such as racial and economic diversity. To the extent that choice moderates some citizens’ diminished involvement in more heterogeneous settings, reforms such as charter schools may enhance opportunities both for improved government service and stronger—and more diverse—social ties.