Parent-generated revenue in public schools, in the form of fee-giving or fundraising, is fast developing as a robust source of financial revenue for public schools in OECD countries. In this paper we draw on a comprehensive empirical dataset of parent-generated financial revenue for public schools located in New South Wales, Australia. We draw on…

This paper draws on critical race theory to explore the reproduction and enactment of Islamophobia in education policy. It will focus on an unprecedented policy intervention in which the federal Australian government withdrew funding from the largest Islamic private schools in the country. Australia represents a useful context to explore…

Parent involvement in their child's schooling is routinely celebrated and emphasised in government education policy in many countries. We take a critical lens to examining parent involvement by investigating voluntary parent fees in public secondary schools, and how these fees are patterned by school socioeconomic status (SES). In Australia, where…

New conceptions of public governance across nations have taken hold globally. In this article, we explore the involvement and expansion of a broad range of actors in public services delivery, beyond the remit of traditional government. While there are common features of this trend, variations reflect the significance of context-sensitive policy,…

This study examines inequalities of school funding as exclusively generated by the parent community in urban public schools, and potentially illuminates a secondary impact of between-school segregation. For schools that are largely understood as free, the substantial injections of private financing into public schools indicate a concerning tension…