White individuals can play a key role in the realization of an education policy and can drastically impact how a policy is implemented because of their resources and the status that come with associating with the privileged racial group in the current racial hierarchy that exists in the United States. Several education policies, such as school desegregation and bilingual education, have goals of attaining education equity or targeting services to marginalized student groups, but these policy goals may not be realized when policies are implemented if White individuals’ exploit these policies. This dissertation is comprised of three papers that examine White individuals in different policy settings including policies that are designed to intentionally achieve a more diverse student body. In my first paper, I use data from a unique survey experiment conducted in November 2020 informed by interest convergence theory, I aim to understand how different policy frames regarding student benefits influence White individuals’ support for a policy that would increase the racial diversity of schools in their community. In my second paper, I conduct interviews with White parents at intentionally diverse charter schools throughout Denver to understand why they chose these schools and how they perceive the diversity of the schools’ student body. In my final paper, I employ a mixed methods approach to analyze which students are served by dual language immersion programs in North Carolina.I draw on various theoretical frameworks such as policy framing, colorblindness, diversity ideology, Whiteness as property, and interest convergence theory to illustrate how White individuals make sense of and relate to policies that attempt to integrate students from different backgrounds, while also challenging the initial frames of the policies so accommodate their own interests. These three papers draw on both qualitative and quantitative research methods to examine these behaviors.
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