COVID School Policy Preferences in the UK
Ben Ansell, Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford
Martin W. Bauer, Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science, LSE
Jane Gingrich, Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford
Jack Stilgoe, Department of Science and Technology Studies, UCL
3rd March 2021
Introduction
This document provides a selection of findings about school preferences from a two wave survey conducted by Ben Ansell (Oxford), Martin W. Bauer (LSE), Jane Gingrich (Oxford), and Jack Stilgoe (UCL) on a representative sample of UK (ex-NI) residents using the polling company YouGov. The first wave took place on September 30th / October 1st 2020 and had 1642 respondents. The second wave surveyed the same group of respondents, receiving 1219 responses from the original 1642 participants (a retention rate of 74%), over the week commencing February 1st 2021.
This project received funding from the John Fell Fund at the University of Oxford (project number 0009190) and was approved by the Oxford’s research ethics committee with approval number R71718/RE001. The experiment in the second wave was pre-registered with EGAP on Jan 31st 2021. Please address correspondence to ben.ansell@politics.ox.ac.uk.
The survey asked respondents a number of policy approval questions. Among these were two questions about schools policy, one asked in the October wave - “Do you support the following policies introduced by the UK government: Opening schools to all pupils” - and one asked in the February wave - “Do you support the following policies introduced by the UK government: Closing schools in January”. Both were coded on a five point scale - Strong Oppose, Oppose, Neither Support Nor Oppose, Support, and Strongly Support. Since the survey is a panel survey we are able to examine how the same respondents’ school policy preferences change over time.
Key Take Home Points
Levels of support: On the whole people were more supportive of closing schools in February than opening them in October.
Changes in support: A majority of people who strongly supported opening the schools in October supported closing them in February. Just twelve percent of people who strongly supported opening schools in October storngly opposed closing them in February.
Group Differences - Demographics: We see that demographics have a relatively small impact on attitudes towards schools reopening in the autumn and shutting at the start of 2021.
- Gender has no relationship with views in either wave. Surprisingly nor does household size.
- Regarding age we see that there is a slight positive gradient in October, with older citizens being more supportive of opening the schools. That gradient has largely disappeared in February. In both waves, people in their forties were most supportive of schools being and remaining open.
- For income, in October wealthier households were more supportive of opening schools. We see no income effect in February.
- For education, there was no relationship in October but more educated people were more supportive of shutting schools in February.
- Ethnic minorities were considerably less supportive of opening the schools and more supportive of closing them than citizens of White British ethnicity. This is consistent with findings in the United States about school closures.
- Teachers were more supportive of shutting the schools in the February survey than non-teachers. However, there was no difference in October in views about opening schools.
Group Differences - Perceived Risks: We asked a number of questions about perceived health and economic risks to our respondents. On the whole, perceptions had a very strong relationship with school policy views.
- People who were concerned about contracting the coronavirus were much less supportive of opening the schools and much more supportive of closing the schools than those who were unconcerned.
- People who thought it was likely that they would have trouble paying the bills in the next six months were less supportive of opening the schools in October. There was however no relationship in February. It is noteworthy that the decision to extend the furlough scheme had not been made by the time of our first survey, whereas it had been extended until April by the time of our second survey.
- People who prioritse the economy over health were much more supportive of opening the schools and much more opposed to closing them than people with the reverse preference.
Group Differences - Politics: Political behaviour and vote intention show a moderate to strong relationship with school policy views.
- Voting for Brexit in the 2016 Referendum is associated with more willingness to open the schools in October and less willingness to close them in February.
- There is a large gap between Conservative and Labour voters in the 2019 General Election in both October (Labour voters less willing to open schools) and February (Labour voters more willing to shut them). SNP supporters are particularly supportive of shutting schools in February (worth noting this was handled by Scottish government). Non-voters were generally cautious about having schools open.
- In terms of current vote intention (asked only in second wave), we see a similar story but with Reform UK supporters (28 in sample) striongly opposed to closing schools.
Vaccine Priority Order: We also asked people’s views on the policy of “the prioritisation of the elderly and healthcare workers over other key workers such as teachers” in regards to the vaccine rollout. Since this question mentions teachers and has been a subject of political debate, we look briefly at it here. We find that teachers, people with larger families, and Labour supporters are all less supportive of prioritising the elderly/health workers over teachers.
Overall Support
Overall support for the government’s policies of opening schools in September (asked in October) and closing them in January (asked in February) is high, especially so for the latter policy.
| Support for Opening Schools: October | ||
|---|---|---|
| Approval Rating | Weighted | Unweighted |
| Strongly Oppose | 0.07 | 0.07 |
| Oppose | 0.13 | 0.13 |
| Neither Support Nor Oppose | 0.15 | 0.14 |
| Support | 0.31 | 0.31 |
| Strongly Support | 0.34 | 0.35 |
| Support for Shutting Schools: February | ||
|---|---|---|
| Approval Rating | Weighted | Unweighted |
| Strongly Oppose | 0.06 | 0.05 |
| Oppose | 0.10 | 0.09 |
| Neither Support Nor Oppose | 0.10 | 0.09 |
| Support | 0.24 | 0.25 |
| Strongly Support | 0.50 | 0.52 |
Wave to Wave Crosstabs
| Crosstab of 1st to 2nd Wave School Policy Preferences | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| W2 Strong Oppose Close | W2 Oppose Close | W2 Neither | W2 Support Close | W2 Strong Support Close | |
| a) W1 Strong Oppose Open | 2.56% | 2.56% | 0.00% | 7.69% | 87.18% |
| b) W1 Oppose Open | 0.00% | 0.69% | 4.17% | 15.97% | 79.17% |
| c) W1 Neither | 1.07% | 2.67% | 16.58% | 31.02% | 48.66% |
| d) W1 Support Open | 1.60% | 8.24% | 9.31% | 32.45% | 48.40% |
| e) W1 Strong Support Open | 12.21% | 16.59% | 9.91% | 21.20% | 40.09% |
Changes in Attitudes
Group Differences
Demographics
Gender
Family Size
Age Group
Household Income
Education Level
Ethnicity
Teachers
Perceived Risks
Health Concerns
Economic Concerns
Priorities
Politics
Brexit Vote
2019 General Election Vote
2021 Party Preference
Vaccine Priority Order
In the second wave we asked questions about government policies and performance related to vaccine, including whether people approved of “the prioritisation of the elderly and healthcare workers over other key workers such as teachers”. The answer was scored on a five point scale from “Strongly Disapprove” to “Strongly Approve”
