RUNNING FOR SCHOOL BOARD: A SURVEY OF CAMPAIGNERS ON THE ISLAND OF MONTREAL

Abstract

Considering that at least in principle all the vital issues that surround society's management of its own future are at stake, seeking election to a school board ought to be a challenging experience. In spite of a certain worldly consensus to the contrary, Townsend and Craig approach their study in this spirit. We are conducted through the process by which they arrived at the factors in the "potential" of a candidate that determine winning or losing in a school board election, factors which they then tested on candidates in elections in the Montreal area in 1977. Their discovery of factors that worked for English candidates and of others that worked for French leads to the development of a predictive group that also worked for both, and included Religious Group Endorsement, a Provincial Level of Emphasis, and Coping with Opponents' Tactics! The lively interest with which this study was conducted communicates itself to the reader, not least in a summary of the recommendations made by the candidates for the conduct of future elections.