Scholars have evaluated policies aimed at addressing racial and socioeconomic achievement gaps in education. However, few studies have looked at how voters themselves perceive the gap and how their attributions for the gap influence their support for the education policies that scholars endorse. This thesis explores the achievement gap in education through a behavioral policy perspective. Specifically, the present study examines whether participants hold dispositional attributions for the gap, namely if they attribute the gap to the students themselves for performing poorly, or situational attributions, namely they attribute the gap to structural factors that students cannot control. This thesis also tests the association between holding situational or dispositional attributions for the gap and support of a more progressive education policy: raising taxes to go to public schools in low-income districts. Finally, this thesis examines if experimentally shifting attributions for the gap affects support of the tax policy.

Ryan Champeau, UG '23: