Deliberating about Affirmative Action: Linking Education Policy Research and the Media

This article offers a qualitative content analysis of the print news media coverage of Proposal 2, an anti–affirmative action ballot initiative that passed on November 7, 2006. Our purpose was to determine what type of information on the initiative and affirmative action was available to the public. Results indicate that little substantive information to inform voters appeared in the print news. We argue that an inclusive and deliberative democracy requires education researchers to link with media sources to provide citizens with rich, research‐based information on education policy issues. Similar initiatives were debated in five states during the fall of 2008, and others are slated for the 2010 ballot, which suggests an urgent need for timely contributions from researchers and media sources alike.