Simply a Sign of the Season? Christmas Trees as Cultural Ciphers in Local Government Management of Diversity

How do local governments symbolically manage the diversity of their residents? Drawing from an original representative sample of local government officials, we use a novel survey experiment with open-ended survey responses to examine preferences for cultural objects that symbolically manage religious diversity, an axis of difference that is increasingly salient to social conflict. Our experiment randomly varies the content of holiday displays on government property to measure diversity management strategies. Results show that government officials prefer the assimilationist strategy of a Christmas tree—by itself—over multiculturalist and exclusivist strategies, which both include sectarian religious content. Officials also evaluate Christmas trees as the content least likely to signal government endorsement of religion, compared to other holiday displays. We argue that these patterns can be explained by conceiving of a Christmas tree as a cultural cipher, a well-known cultural object that affords a range of meanings and resonates across social identities as innocuous. We argue that cultural ciphers are useful for an assimilationist approach to managing diversity because their ambiguity allows them to act as a vehicle of symbolic inclusion while also sustaining the meanings of majority groups. We also consider how cultural ciphers may lose their power for civic solidarity.