Winds of change: How street‐level bureaucrats actively represent minority clients by influencing majority clients—The context of LGB Israeli teachers

Abstract

The literature dealing with representative bureaucracy emphasizes the role that minority street‐level bureaucrats may play when, directly and indirectly, they actively represent clients with whom they share a common identity. My study goes further, contributing to the implementation literature, by examining why and how these street‐level bureaucrats use their discretion to shape non‐minority clients' attitudes toward minorities. I explore this phenomenon empirically through interviews with 36 Israeli lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) teachers. I analyze the traditional methods they routinely adopt, such as exposing students to information about minorities, encouraging open discussions of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) issues in the classroom, and entrepreneurially developing and introducing innovative learning programs. I illustrate how they respond to ad hoc cases (e.g., protecting LGBTQ+ clients or taking advantage of outside events to promote understanding of relevant issues) and the approach of leading by example.

The Role of Organizational and Client Reactions in Understanding Representative Bureaucracy

“…We demonstrate that some of our participants actively represent clients with whom they share an identity by taking actions that change the official policy. These findings accord with previous results indicating that street-level bureaucrats may act entrepreneurially when they actively represent (Davidovitz, 2022b) minority citizens by deviating from existing policies (Diab & Cohen, 2022).…”

“…Our findings might be relevant to other types of street-level bureaucrats who operate in different geographical, political, and social contexts, as well as other public professionals such as nurses, physicians, and police officers who are also affected by organizational dynamics and relationships with clients. In addition, the study focuses on LGBTQ+ street-level bureaucrats, a population that is overlooked in the current representative bureaucracy and street-level bureaucracy literatures (Davidovitz, 2022b; Bishu & Kennedy, 2020). Furthermore, there is also limited research on street-level bureaucracy and representative bureaucracy in cities affected by ethno-political conflicts (Shwartz-Ziv & Strier, 2022; Strier et al, 2021).…”

“…Symbolic representation may boost citizens' trust in the government and promote their cooperation with it (Groeneveld et al, 2015;Riccucci & Van Ryzin, 2017). Given that trust between the public and public servants has a reciprocal impact (Yang, 2005), it is particularly important with regard to street-level bureaucrats who interact daily with their clients (Davidovitz, 2022a(Davidovitz, , 2022bSenghaas et al, 2019). These empirical examples illustrate the importance of reciprocity in the interrelationships between street-level bureaucrats and clients.…”

Policy entrepreneurship on the street‐level: A systematic literature review

“…Third, we address street-level policy entrepreneurs' motivations. In line with previous findings emphasizing that SLBs act in accordance with the narrative of citizen-agents (Maynard-Moody & Musheno, 2000), are motivated by the desire to improve the welfare of their clients (Davidovitz, 2022;Lavee, 2022;Tummers & Bekkers, 2014), and use unique entrepreneurial strategies (Lavee & Cohen, 2019), our findings underscore the differences between traditional policy entrepreneurs and street-level policy entrepreneurs. Our finding that they seem to be motivated by the public's interest contrasts with the on-going criticism of streetlevel policy entrepreneurs as motivated by self-interests that may harm society in the long run (Cohen, 2021).…”