Representative bureaucracy theory holds that a bureaucrat’s demographic identity can affect their implementation of policy, particularly if they actively represent a specific group in society. In “Bureaucratic Beliefs and Representation: Linking Social Identities, Attitudes, and Client Outcomes,” published in November in The American Review of Public Administration, SPA Associate Professor Nathan Favero examines the theory as it applies to the social identities, self-perceived roles, and political preferences of Texas public school administrators. While his results confirm a link between managers’ social identities and distributional policy outcomes, they also suggest that bureaucratic attitudes don’t tell the whole story.

“The big-picture research question may be ‘why does race matter?’” said Favero. “We have all these studies showing that the race of bureaucrats predicts [certain] outcomes. We agree now, in academia, that race isn’t biological or innate, but just this arbitrary, socially constructed bucket that we give powerful social meaning. By treating race as static, as a series of dummy variables, we're not doing justice to the richness of this concept.”

Favero began work on these questions in 2013, as a PhD student at Texas A&M University. He joined a research team led by Professor Kenneth J. Meier (now at AU), who, along with coauthor Laurence O’Toole of the University of Georgia, had assembled and studied a huge dataset of survey results from Texas public school administrators. 

“Texas was way ahead of the curve in collecting good school data,” Favero explained. “No Child Left Behind, which required schools to collect, and report standardized exam data, was actually modeled on Texas. On top of this huge pile of promising, publicly available data, Meier and O’Toole collected some data themselves through surveys.”

This marriage of methods expanded the possibilities for analysis. Further, the state’s demographic and socioeconomic diversity and varying personnel practices offered scholars a rare opportunity to consider how race and representation (i.e., the attitudes of White, Black, and Latino school principals) affect school outcomes. Favero studied the research process and hit the literature. Inspired by Sally Selden’s 1997 book The Promise of Representative Bureaucracy: Diversity and Responsiveness in a Government Agency, which considered race and representation among rural loan officers, he adapted five questions from her survey and added one of his own, which Meier included in the project.

“While the literature is full of discussions about bureaucratic values and attitudes, these mechanisms go unmeasured,” said Favero. “They are just in the background, as a likely explanation for their results. I wanted to see if I could replicate some of this in another context; to a large extent, I couldn't, which is kind of interesting.”

His study engaged carefully with the qualitative work on educational leadership, particularly the experiences of minoritized school administrators, who are hard to fit into a single box.

“Not all Latina or Black administrators approach [problems] in the same way, and they may have serious constraints in bringing their own values to bear in reshaping the system,” he said. “Part of the contribution of this study is to own up for the past mistake of equating race with values. . . the attitudes I measure cannot fully explain the [racial] associations. Much more research is needed to fully unpack race as a more three-dimensional concept.”

In addition, Favero hopes that the article shines a light on the assumptions of responsibility wrapped up in representative bureaucracy.

“When we hold up representative bureaucracy as the main model of equity in public administration, we implicitly put the responsibility for addressing inequity on bureaucrats from minoritized groups,” he said. “And that’s not fair. Everyone in an organization has an obligation to be mindful of equity. In terms of raw numbers, the majority group must be part of the action.”

Favero admits, even celebrates, the complicated nature of his findings.

“My results are not easy to summarize,” he said. “They're complicated, messy, and mixed, likely because it's not a simple one-to-one relationship. It's not like you add a Black bureaucrat, you get an additional unit of positive outcomes for Black clients. It's way messier than that, and so are organizations and humans.”

Favero’s findings indicate that white administrators, however well-intended, cannot recruit personnel of color as effectively as their Black or Latino counterparts.
 
“At least at the time of this study, well-intended white administrators are not figuring out how to make their workforces equitable enough that Latino and Black teachers want to stay there,” he said. 

In addition, the political identities of the principals in his sample predicted various outcomes.

“School administrators have to make tough calls about school discipline, balance the needs of different groups of students, and rely on their personal theory of change about how to help students,” he said. “When we think about political identities and core beliefs about how society should be structured, it's not surprising that that spills over into the running of a school.”

Favero, who turned his work on the original project into a dissertation chapter, found that he lacked the time, interest, and maturity to quickly convert the work into a publication. And he is glad of it.

“The benefit of waiting so long to publish this is that I've had years to mull over comments, think about the nuances of these issues, and read more,” he said, in a plea of encouragement to others. “Don't give up. For me, it took 10 years.” 

Time management is imperative, he continued. Most students start off with too few projects and say yes to every invitation. Soon, as they build skills, they must learn to say no.

“Since my dissertation was solo authored, it was a lot harder to find the motivation to finish up the final stages of the projects. Also, I tend to overcommit. Projects are way more fun to start than to finish and knowing that my co-authors were waiting on me provided some social pressure.”

Finally, Favero suggests, get some distance from the project.

“When I finished my dissertation, I hated it,” he admitted. “I am not exaggerating. I did not want to think about it or look at it for months. It didn't turn out the way I wanted. Not everyone has such a negative relationship with their dissertation, but it is common to be frustrated and burnt out by the time you defend. 

“I couldn't see its beauty. It took me some space to be able to step back and see the useful, important pieces that I could repackage.”