Peer Reviewed Journal Articles

• Arnzen, C.; Brezicha, K., Childs, J., Germain, E., Horsford, S., Jenkins, D.A., & LoBue, A. 2023. “The Future of Democratic Education in an Era of Pandemics and Political Polarization.” Peabody Journal of Education.

• Arnzen, C. & D. Houston. 2023. “Who Should Control Education Now? Revisiting Preferences for Local Control of Educational Decision-making.” Peabody Journal of Education. DOI: 10.1080/0161956X.2023.2261315  

Editor-Reviewed & Other Publications

• Arnzen, C. Various Entries in An Encyclopedia of Youth Activism in America (Forthcoming 2026). Bloomsbury.

• Arnzen, C.; Hammerly, I. O.; O’Brachta, W., O’Neill, C. B.; Tan, Rebecca G.; Wood, J. Forthcoming 2025. “Career Preparation in the Political Science Curriculum.” Political Science Today. 

• Arnzen, C. & R. Jacobsen. 2025. “Local Elections, National Tides: The Role of Partisanship in School Board Elections.” APSA Educate: Reflections on the 2024 U.S. Election.

• Arnzen, C.; Falabella, L.; Jackson, J.; Foster Shoaf, N.; & Victor K. 2023. “Rethinking the Political Science Major: Recruitment, Retention, and Careers.” Political Science Today, 3(3): 5-15.

• Arnzen, C. 2019. “Legislators need to confront local funding as they consider rewriting the state funding formula.” Idaho Ed News. November 7.

• Edge, S. & Arnzen, C. 2019. “One third of Idaho districts protect LGBTQ employees with policies.” Idaho Ed News. August 19.

• Edge, S. & Arnzen, C. 2019. “Most districts come close to complying with Idaho’s transparency laws.” Idaho Ed News. July 29.

• Arnzen, C & O'Neill, C. "Teaching About Schooling: Integrating Education Politics into Political Science Curricula" (Revise & Resubmit at Journal of Political Science Education)

Abstract: Education is a vital tenet of a democratic society, equipping citizens with the skills necessary to self-govern. Individuals also experience K12 education policy consistently throughout their lives, as a student, a parent, a taxpayer, and/or a community member. For these reasons, we argue for the inclusion of education politics in political science education. We highlight the importance of this integration for students, the discipline, and democratic ideals. We emphasize that education, a crucial public good, has always been a political institution, yet political science curricula often overlook this aspect. By incorporating education politics into political science courses, we believe we can enhance students' understanding of democratic processes, prepare them for various professional opportunities, and foster civic engagement. Our paper provides a framework for political science educators to integrate education politics into their curricula, illustrating the connections between education politics and key political science concepts.

• Nuñez, M., Arnzen, C., Rosenstein, H.; Moffitt, S.; Collins, J. “Administrative Designs and Access to Political Arenas in Public Education.”  (Revise & Resubmit at Governance)

Abstract: What administrative and political features render spaces of political action publicly accessible? Drawing on Schattschneider’s core elements of visibility and scope, we offer a framework to identify administrative features that are crucial to democratic accessibility and apply this framework to American public school board meetings. We analyze online access to school board meeting information through original data retrieved from more than 11,000 U.S. school districts. We find that the availability of information about school board meetings systematically varies across districts’ administrative, geographic, and political attributes. Through comparative case studies of four school districts from 2019 to 2022, our analysis identifies ways administrative procedures further shape venue access and how group mobilization can facilitate greater access in the context of onerous administrative procedures. Our results elucidate how public access to policymaking venues depends on governmental and group investments: both state and civil society contribute to a venue’s democracy.

• Arnzen, C. & R. Jacobsen. “Neighborhood Democracy: The Politicization of School Boards and Implications for Democratic Education.” (Under Review) 

Abstract: American education has long been governed by local, democratically elected school boards. This exceptional institutional arrangement has produced thousands of neighborhood democracies tasked with defining and guiding education in local communities. We consider how school boards shape democracy, for better or worse, focusing on how they shape democratic attitudes, values, and skills. Today, nationalization, centralization, polarization, and declining trust are eroding school boards’ exceptional buffer and infusing national, partisan politics into these neighborhood democracies. We detail how these forces and the broader politicization of school boards threatens their capacity to offer an education in democracy to their communities. We conclude considering what might be lost for democracy broadly if school board democracy disappears. 

• Arnzen, C. & R. Jacobsen. “The Influence of Partisanship in Local School Board Elections: Evidence from Exit Polls in Two States.” (Working Paper)

Abstract: Much of education has historically been shaped by local, nonpartisan school boards elected separately off-cycle from state and national elections. This structure was intentionally designed to insulate education from broader political forces. With nationalization and political polarization increasingly reshaping education, some states are considering reforming school board elections by making them on-cycle and/or shifting them to partisan. While such changes may increase turnout and partisan alignment, they also usher local education into explicitly national and partisan politics. We consider how these electoral structures influence the information voters use to select school board members, drawing from the first-of-its-kind exit poll of school board voters (N = 839) in two states chosen for their on-cycle elections. In both states, elections occur on-cycle with state and federal elections–the opportunity to observe the greatest degree of nationalization. While one state conducts nonpartisan school board elections, the other allows partisanship. A vast majority of voters in both states expressed that school board candidates’ policy stances were the most important factor shaping their vote choice, while a majority of voters also held common local educational priorities (student safety and student well-being). Despite this consensus, we find that voters rely heavily on partisanship as a heuristic in school board elections: voters are 25 percentage points more likely to vote for a copartisan when party affiliation is present on the ballot. We conclude by considering the implications for local education governance and decision making. 

• Arnzen, C. & Cohodes, S. “Explaining the Gender Gap in Voting: Civic Returns to Education.” (Under Review)

Abstract: Women have outpaced men both at the ballot box and in educational attainment in recent decades in the United States. Since education is closely tied to political participation, we consider these two trends in tandem and assess how much of the gender gap in voting  is attributable to educational differences, differential returns to education, or other, non-education related elements. Using comprehensive educational data from Massachusetts students matched with voter records, we estimate a Blinder-Oaxaca-Kitagawa decomposition to understand how educational attainment and other educational experiences contribute to gender voting differentials. In our sample, women outvote men by 4.4 percentage points in the first possible presidential election that young people can vote in after allowing time to complete college. We find that roughly 60 percent of this gap in voting is due to differences in educational attainment by gender, with only some of the remaining portion of variation explained by either gendered differences in educational experiences or gendered returns to these educational characteristics. These results broadly suggest that the gender gap in voting can largely be explained by a rise in women's education and that if men reached the educational levels of women, we would expect higher voting rates for men.

• Arnzen, C. “Does Educational Attainment Mitigate the Administrative Burdens of Voting?” (Under Review)

Abstract: The multitude of state election laws enacted in recent years implies a widespread acknowledgement that the "direct costs" of voting matter. Recent studies have affirmed that the costs of voting, such as those imposed by changes in election laws requiring voter identification, can reduce turnout particularly among certain groups. Other work has demonstrated laws that reduce the costs of voting do not always increase turnout. Amidst these conflicting findings, I argue that the impact of changes in the cost of voting are best understood in aggregate, as the process of voting in each state is governed by a web of overlapping laws and requirements. I further argue that increases to the direct costs of voting disproportionately impact areas with less-educated populations. Using two-way fixed effects models for county-level voter turnout in the six presidential elections between 2000 and 2020, I estimate that a standard deviation increase in the aggregate "costs of voting" decrease turnout in U.S. counties by 1.1 percentage points. Additional estimates show that the impacts are concentrated among counties with the lowest education levels---a one standard deviation increase in the cost of voting only decreases turnout by 0.86 percentage points in highly-educated counties of each state. Echoing work that shows such administrative burdens disproportionately affect less educated individuals, these findings offer suggestive evidence that increases in the costs of voting push less educated individuals out of the electorate. 

• Arnzen, C.  "The Civic Benefits of State Education Policy Investments." (Working Paper)

Abstract: Individuals with higher levels of educational attainment are more likely to vote. Though this associational relationship is one of the most cited in political science, research has only recently confirmed that educational attainment increases voting. However, we still know little about which specific aspects of education matter---beyond years of formal schooling or degrees held. To advance beyond these measures, this paper explores whether state education policy variation in approaches to civics education, academic achievement, social and emotional learning, educational differentiation, and teacher resources can shed light on youth voter turnout (18 to 25 years-olds). Using state-level youth turnout data for national elections between 2010 and 2022 matched with a series of lagged education policy measures, this paper employs a series of two-way fixed effect regression models to explore whether state education policy can shape youth civic engagement. Results show that educational attainment predicts turnout at the state level, though not for young voters. Further, while most lagged measures for civic education, academic achievement, and educational differentiation exhibit no relationship with youth turnout, states with higher policy measures for social and emotional learning and education funding are consistently positively associated with higher turnout rates for youth. These findings illuminate the important dynamics of education that may shape voter turnout.

Academic Year 2025 - 2026

• O’Neill, C. & C. Arnzen. “Defining Citizenship: A Typology of U.S. State-Level Civic Education Policy.” Annual Conference on Citizenship Education. (2025)

• Arnzen, C. & R. Jacobsen. “The Influence of Partisanship in School Board Elections.” Delivered at the American Political Science Association Conference. (2025) 

• Arnzen, C. “How Education Shapes LGBTQ Political Participation.” American Political Science Association Conference. (2025) 

Academic Year 2024 - 2025

• Arnzen, C. “Civic Returns to State Education Policy Investments.” Midwest Political Science Association Conference. (2025) 

• Arnzen, C. & C. O’Neill. “Teaching About Schooling: Integrating Education Politics into the Political Science Curriculum.” APSA Teaching & Learning Conference. (2025) 

• Arnzen, C. “Civic Returns to State Education Policy Investments.” Southern Political Science Association Conference. (2025) 

• Arnzen, C. “The New Literacy Tests: Education & The Administrative Burdens of Voting.” American Political Science Association Conference. (2024) 

• Arnzen, C. & C. O’Neill. “Empowering Future Citizens: Integrating Education Politics into Political Science Curricula.” American Political Science Association Conference. (2024)

Academic Year 2023 - 2024

• Arnzen, C. “The Link between Education & Voting: The Role of Administrative Burden.” Midwest Political Science Association Conference. (2024) 

• Arnzen, C. “Quantity vs. Quality of Education: Expanding Our Understanding of How Education Causes Voting.” American Education Research Association Conference. (2024) 

• Arnzen, C. “The Political Polarization of Education Politics: Implications for Democratic Education.” American Education Research Association Conference. (2024)

• Arnzen, C. “The Link between Education & Voting: The Role of Administrative Burden.” American Political Science Association Conference. (2023)

• Arnzen, C. & D. Houston. “Rural Attitudes Toward Education & Education Policy.” American Political Science Association Conference. (2023) 

Academic Year 2022 - 2023

• Arnzen, C. & S. Cohodes. “Understanding How Education, School Type, & Gender Influence Civic Participation: Evidence from Massachusetts.” Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management Fall Conference. (2022)

• Arnzen, C. & D. Houston. “Revisiting Preferences for Local Control in Education.” American Political Science Association Conference. (2022) 

• Gaffney, Elisabeth. 2023. "Experts say friendship between Rep. Randy Fine, Barbara Feingold complicates presidential search." in The University Press of Florida Atlantic University.