In 2019, Oakland teachers joined the wave of teacher strikes across U.S. cities sparked by teacher activism against neoliberal reforms that cut funding to public schools, increased privatization, and led to school closures. As in other cities, a group of progressive rank-and-file teachers working toward transformative change moved their union…

This paper presents empirical evidence on kindergarten admission preparation services in Hong Kong. Parents increasingly turn to tutoring companies for a range of services, such as social skills training, portfolio editing, mock interviews, and parental consultation. We used qualitative methods to capture the views of parents, teachers, tutors,…

How does platformization work as vehicle for the integration of public online education into a private global digital infrastructure? And how can education technologies ('edtech') be governed at various levels to benefit the public good? In this article, we examine online environments in primary schools in The Netherlands, a traditionally strong…

This article examines the ways in which teachers and community-based activists collaborated to advance an anti-privatisation agenda within an urban school district. The article emerges from our respective studies of privatisation in Oakland, one a historical study of the advance of neoliberalism and the other a case study (Merriam 2007,…

In the 2016-2017 school year, the Liberian government launched Partnership Schools For Liberia (PSL), a pilot program in which the management of 93 primary schools was transferred to 8 private contractors. The pilot owed much to the importation of western policy models and was facilitated by the British organisation ARK and involved BIA, a private…

The years following the end of martial law and the democratization of Taiwan have been marked by sizable political and social reform. In the interests of increasing social participation and decreasing direct state control of economic and social development programs, public-private partnerships (PPP) have been emphasized as the primary means to…

This article examines the potentiality, acceptability and ethical considerations of a mindfulness-based intervention (MBI) for supporting pupils' mental well-being in a junior school. To date, research has predominantly focused on the psychological or behavioural benefits of MBIs rather than broader and more philosophical issues of implementation.…

In Ireland, primary physical education (PE) is delivered by non-specialist classroom teachers. A growing number of primary schools are committing resources to external providers for partial delivery of the PE curriculum. Some researchers (Evans and Davies [2014; 2015]. "Neoliberal Freedoms, Privatisation and the Future of Physical…

Purpose: Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have been involved in academic programs in many Western countries, actively participating and reshaping policy implementation. This tremendous growth in external voluntary and philanthropic organizations in schools is associated with a global trend toward decentralization, commodification,…

Drawing on an integrative review of the literature on the privatization of education and an empirical case study of technology corporations in education, this article examines the corporate within the political economy of education. It argues that by analytically conceiving of corporations under the banner of the private sphere and,…

To experiment with the possible privatisation of its primary education system, Liberia initiated the Partnership Schools of Liberia (PSL), which turned over the management of 93 public schools to eight private contractors. A randomised controlled trial (RCT) study was initiated comparing the PSL schools with matched public schools and the results…

Focussing on the ideological aspects of privatisation, this paper explores ways in which "freedom" has been activated discursively to justify actions involving changes to both the structure and the content of formal education in the UK. Empirically, the paper will analyse examples in England of UK Government "new provider"…

This paper critically analyses key educational policy documents produced by the World Bank mainly from the mid-1980s to 2010 with regard to implementing major educational projects in Nepal. Using critical policy sociology as a methodological tool, the paper explores how a small Himalayan nation with per capita income of about US$730 (2014) plunged…

With international momentum to achieve "Education for All" by 2015, global attention is being paid to those parts of the world where mass formal primary schooling is relatively new. Uganda is such a place. In the context of ethnographic fieldwork at a poor, undocumented, private primary school in rural Uganda, parents were interviewed in…

Outsourcing is a complex, controversial and pervasive practice that is increasingly becoming a matter of concern for educational researchers. This article contributes to this literature by examining outsourcing practices related to health, sport and physical education (HSPE). Specifically, it reports data on specialist health and physical…