School district secession occurs when a community splits from an existing school district and creates a new district. While rare, secessions are increasing in number and relevance, and previous work has shown that secessions have contributed to the resegregation of American schools. We build on prior research by exploring how state policy and political, economic, and racial factors influence the likelihood of secession attempts. School districts with declining enrollments and a more racially segregated student body were more likely to experience a secession attempt; we also show that state policy can restrict secession attempts. Advocates for secession often use race-neutral arguments about attaining local control or correcting diseconomies of scale. Results, however, suggest that political and economic rationales are less predictive of secessions than racial segregation. We conclude that secessions exemplify institutional racism when the formation of new boundaries follows the lines of de facto segregation and thereby excludes people of color.

Editorial: Contexts is a new journal, but it also serves as an epistemic community that can legitimize and advance the state of research and enhance authorship as the community grows. It allows for the creative, expansive growth of new research, while building a thoughtful discourse among reviewers and authors to strengthen scholarly communication and practice. Perhaps the majority of new submissions to Contexts are coming from authors who are active in the RSD (Relating Systems Thinking and Design) Symposium community.

Public budgeting and finance is a discipline that encompasses communities of research and practice. Too often, however, these communities fail to engage each other, instead choosing to operate independently. The result is that the research being conducted fails to address the questions of the day and our governments’ challenges. In this article, we come together as a community of academics and practitioners to establish an agenda for where future research should be conducted. This agenda aims to align the research being undertaken within the academic community with the needs of those working in the community of practice. After establishing ten areas where research is needed, we followed a ranked-choice voting process to establish a prioritization for them. Based on the outcome of this process, the two primary areas where research is currently needed most are the fiscal health of our governments and the implementation of social equity budgeting.

Imposter Phenomenon (IP) is feelings of inadequacy and inauthenticity in settings where achievement is emphasized and valued. This exploratory study employs a survey to investigate the prevalence and underlying factors of IP among Master of Public Administration (MPA) students at seven US universities with varying institutional characteristics. The results show that over 1 in 10 MPA students report experiencing IP and feeling excluded by their peers and faculty. Our findings show that feelings of belongingness are negatively associated with experiences of IP. These findings contribute to the growing scholarship that emphasizes the role of oppressive systems in feelings of belonging and inadequacy. This article offers insight to better support MPA students in navigating their studies in the context of oppressive social systems. By understanding IP's dynamics and the role of belonging in the context of PA education, this study hopes to foster a more inclusive academic environment.

Social work programs in the Global North are increasingly engaged in international student exchange with countries in the Indo-Pacific that belong to the Global South. However, there is a paucity of literature exploring the experiences of the institutions that host these exchanges. This article reports on the findings of a qualitative project that sought host institutions' perspectives on the value of student exchanges. The findings indicate a perception that some mutual benefit and reciprocity can be established in international exchange but that disparity in resourcing, absence of opportunities for hosts to travel to Australia, and the privileged status of knowledge produced in the Global North maintains an inequity between exchange partners. These findings highlight the need for steps that can be taken toward reciprocity while demonstrating the impact power imbalance can have on the nature of Global South-North student exchange programs. IMPLICATIONS Research has shown that student exchange programs between the Global North and the Global South are often underpinned and shaped by a significant power imbalance in favour of the Global North. Findings show that Australian (Global North) knowledge is privileged over knowledge that is Indigenous to the host country and that financial constraints prevent host organisations from equal participation in programs. A form of reciprocity can be established whereby organisations in the Global South can access benefits associated with the programs, without sending their own students on exchange.

Over the past thirty years, four surveys have analyzed local government forecast practices, with the most recent being over a decade old. This article builds on the prior surveys with a novel 2018 survey dataset from the Government Finance Officers Association to examine the factors related to the adoption of a particular forecast time horizon and the perceived influence of forecasts on the final adopted budget. Estimates of ordered logistic regressions with predictive margins indicate that certain budget processes and the length of time since a government adopted a new budget process are associated with forecast practices.

Fiscal shocks exert budgetary pressures on school districts and constrain their ability to provide public education. An emerging literature examines the role of fiscal reserves to mitigate expenditure cuts in school districts. In the U.S. context, this article provides evidence that Kentucky school districts from school years 2001-2002 to 2013-2014 drained fiscal reserves and cut expenditures in response to revenue decreases. Further, school districts drained fiscal reserves to stabilize non-instructional expenditures, which have fixed costs. Collectively, the findings presented in this article build evidence that school districts strategically respond to budgetary pressures.

Editorial. In the 10th year of the Relating Systems Thinking and Design Symposium (RSD), the Systemic Design Association (SDA) board decided to bring a new journal into being for the scholarly community forming in systemic design. As board members, RSD hosts, and editors, we are delighted to announce the availability of a community-driven journal for the field. We hope this will inspire a vigorous epistemic culture and drive additional publications that emerge from an engaged knowledge community. The articles that follow in Volume 1 are the first collection of reviewed contributions from 2022, with five papers reflecting a diversity of studies, themes, and views.

The local government budget process involves a variety of stakeholders. As part of this process, local governments may use public participation mechanisms, ranging from neighborhood meetings to citizen committees, to engage stakeholder groups and stakeholder networks. To test this relationship, this article uses survey data from 294 senior budget and finance officers in the United States. Regression estimates show a positive association between the use of citizen committees and all but one stakeholder group. Further, neighborhood associations are the only type of permanent group that is consistently associated with multiple stakeholder groups. Collectively, the regression estimates suggest that organizations are strategically engaging intensely with selected, intentional citizen committees, but that increased participation mechanism use may be illusory if taken out of venue context. These findings call into question the different public participation mechanisms that governments can use to be inclusive of more stakeholders during the public budgeting process.

PurposePublic management researchers commonly model dichotomous dependent variables with parametric methods despite their relatively strong assumptions about the data generating process. Without testing for those assumptions and consideration of semiparametric alternatives, such as maximum score, estimates might be biased, or predictions might not be as accurate as possible.Design/methodology/approachTo guide researchers, this paper provides an evaluative framework for comparing parametric estimators with semiparametric and nonparametric estimators for dichotomous dependent variables. To illustrate the framework, the article estimates the factors associated with the passage of school district bond referenda in all Texas school districts from 1998 to 2015.FindingsEstimates show that the correct prediction of a bond passing increases from 77.2 to 78%, with maximum score estimation relative to a commonly used parametric alternative. While this is a small increase, it is meaningful in comparison to the random prediction base model.Originality/valueFuture research modeling any dichotomous dependent variable can use the framework to identify the most appropriate estimator and relevant statistical programs.

Local governments forecast revenues and expenditures as part of their budget process. Despite growing evidence of biased revenue forecasts, there is limited research on expenditure forecast bias. To contribute the literature, this article uses theory on the forecast information set that considers factors associated with biased expenditure forecasts. Two-way fixed effects regression models are estimated with a panel of all Kentucky school districts from 2001 to 2014. 82.1% of districts overestimated expenditures. Model estimates show that revenue forecasts and fiscal reserves are associated with expenditure forecast bias, indicating that forecasters consider financial factors in their information set.

School district performance ratings are presented on intuitive grading scales. These ratings are widely publicized by local news outlets and can potentially influence voter behavior. Based on behavioral research applied to the local public finance context, we hypothesize that voters will anchor their votes in initial performance ratings even if the performance rating subsequently changes. This article investigates this hypothesis with a panel of all Texas school district bond referenda from 1998 to 2015. Estimates of probit models with careful consideration of selection bias provide support for our anchoring hypothesis. Evidence of anchoring votes, however, is nuanced and varies across two different Texas school district rating systems.

Purpose - The authors show how to extend difference-in-differences (DiD) frameworks to Granger (1969) equations, a technique that tests for the parallel trends assumption and measures changes in effect sizes over time. To illustrate how these equations work, they apply them to state cutback management decisions in three recessions. Design/methodology/approach - This study applies quantitative methods. The authors estimate DiD frameworks as Granger (1969) equations. Findings - After empirically analyzing recessions that started in 1990, 2001 and 2007, the authors find that states deepen expenditure cuts when economic declines lengthen and tend to make large cuts to specific expenditure categories instead of spreading cuts equally over all service areas. Originality/value - The authors offer two contributions of methodological value. First, they introduce the estimation of Granger equations to the study of topics in public administration. Second, they show how this technique helps to evaluate the impact of economic declines on state spending. By instituting these contributions, they offer a unique way of analyzing cutback management decisions.

This article extends existing theoretical perspectives to present a continuum of global citizenship education that can be applied to explore the practice and outcomes of transformative Work-Integrated Learning (WIL) experiences encompassing service-learning. It draws data from three WIL case studies across the disciplines of Business, Social Work and Education to explore how this continuum elucidates understanding of students' engagement with and reflection on critical and transformative notions of global citizenship. Using critical service-learning theory that positions students as agents of their own transformation, the authors found that global citizenship can be conceptualized as a multifaceted process of becoming underpinned by the development of student agency, rather than a linear destination of 'knowing'. We provide examples of this agency while also considering the complexities in and for transformative learning for global citizenship.

Background: Health-care systems across the globe are facing increased pressures to balance the efficient use of resources and at the same time provide high-quality care. There is greater requirement for services to be evidence based, but practices that are of limited clinical effectiveness or cost-effectiveness still occur. Objectives: Our objectives included completing a concept analysis of de-implementation, surfacing decision-making processes associated with de-implementing through stakeholder engagement, and generating an evidence-based realist programme theory of ‘what works’ in de-implementation. Design: A realist synthesis was conducted using an iterative stakeholder-driven four-stage approach. Phase 1 involved scoping the literature and conducting stakeholder interviews to develop the concept analysis and an initial programme theory. In Phase 2, systematic searches of the evidence were conducted to test and develop this theory, expressed in the form of contingent relationships. These are expressed as context–mechanism–outcomes to show how particular contexts or conditions trigger mechanisms to generate outcomes. Phase 3 consisted of validation and refinement of programme theories through stakeholder interviews. The final phase (i.e. Phase 4) formulated actionable recommendations for service leaders. Participants: In total, 31 stakeholders (i.e. user/patient representatives, clinical managers, commissioners) took part in focus groups and telephone interviews. Data sources: Using keywords identified during the scoping work and concept analysis, searches of bibliographic databases were conducted in May 2018. The databases searched were the Cochrane Library, Campbell Collaboration, MEDLINE (via EBSCOhost), the Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (via EBSCOhost), the National Institute for Health Research Journals Library and the following databases via the ProQuest platform: Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts, Social Services Abstracts, International Bibliography of the Social Sciences, Social Sciences Database and Sociological Abstracts. Alerts were set up for the MEDLINE database from May 2018 to December 2018. Online sources were searched for grey literature and snowballing techniques were used to identify clusters of evidence. Results: The concept analysis showed that de-implementation is associated with five main components in context and over time: (1) what is being de-implemented, (2) the issues driving de-implementation, (3) the action characterising de-implementation, (4) the extent that de-implementation is planned or opportunistic and (5) the consequences of de-implementation. Forty-two papers were synthesised to identify six context–mechanism–outcome configurations, which focused on issues ranging from individual behaviours to organisational procedures. Current systems can perpetuate habitual decision-making practices that include low-value treatments. Electronic health records can be designed to hide or remove low-value treatments from choice options, foregrounding best evidence. Professionals can be made aware of their decision-making strategies through increasing their attention to low-value practice behaviours. Uncertainty about diagnosis or patients’ expectations for certain treatments provide opportunities for ‘watchful waiting’ as an active strategy to reduce inappropriate investigations and prescribing. The emotional component of clinician–patient relationships can limit opportunities for de-implementation, requiring professional support through multimodal educational interventions. Sufficient alignment between policy, public and professional perspectives is required for de-implementation success. Limitations: Some specific clinical issues (e.g. de-prescribing) dominate the de-implementation evidence base, which may limit the transferability of the synthesis findings. Any realist inquiry generates findings that are essentially cumulative and should be developed through further investigation that extends the range of sources into, for example, clinical research and further empirical studies. Conclusions: This review contributes to our understanding of how de-implementation of low-value procedures and services can be improved within health-care services, through interventions that make professional decision-making more accountable and the prominence of a whole-system approach to de-implementation. Given the whole-system context of de-implementation, a range of different dissemination strategies will be required to engage with different stakeholders, in different ways, to change practice and policy in a timely manner. Study registration: This study is registered as PROSPERO CRD42017081030. Funding: This project was funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Health Services and Delivery Research programme and will be published in full in Health Services and Delivery Research; Vol. 9, No. 2. See the NIHR Journals Library website for further project information.