Written by two leading international experts, "Early Childhood in the Anglosphere" offers a unique comparison of early childhood education and care services, and parenting leave, across seven high-income Anglophone countries. Peter Moss and Linda Mitchell explore what these systems have in common, including the dominance of 'childcare'…

This article seeks to describe a range of enablers of, and constraints on, private actors in New Zealand schooling, using scholarly, polity and mass media sources. It focuses particularly on the decades since the educational reforms of the 4th Labour Government in the 1980s. The article begins by providing a brief background on educational…

This article sets out to demonstrate the considerable extent to which the New Zealand school system has become saturated by private interests, and to explain this development over time. It is the first such overview of the privatisation of schooling in the New Zealand context. The analysis illustrates that the rise of private actors has involved…

The article analyses the impact of the neoliberal policy framework and managerialism on critical legal education in the context of Waikato Law Faculty, University of Waikato, Aotearoa New Zealand. The delivery of critical legal education challenges the ideology and implementation of current tertiary education policy and training because it is…

In Britain and New Zealand the neoliberal assault on universities has shifted from new public management and funding models to the special status of the public university. The project aims to complete neoliberal business initiated 25 years ago by more fully marketising and financialising universities, starting with 'unbundling' and outsourcing and…

This article analyses the opening up of state schooling in Aotearoa New Zealand to both for-profit and not-for-profit participation over the last decade. It provides a theoretical framework for thinking about the significance of this development and gives examples of privatisation, concentrating on two case studies in particular. The article…

In this article, I examine the practice of outsourcing physical education (PE) lessons to external sports organisations. I draw from ethnographic research conducted with two primary schools in New Zealand to illuminate how outsourcing interconnects with the privatisation of education. Using Foucault's notion of government, I demonstrate how…

Sometimes an educational idea is inexplicably adopted around the world with remarkable speed and consistency and in the absence of a proper evidence base or with little regard or respect for teachers, students or learning. This paper examines what has arguably been the most contentious and virulent educational reform of the past half-century.…

Recent reforms in England's education system have been justified on the grounds that other countries have pursued similar approaches to education reform. Many such policies that by-pass or otherwise diminish meso-level institutions demonstrate a commitment to the idea of devolving authority to local actors. The current reforms in England and…

This paper examines recent privatisation practices in New Zealand public schooling. The standard political rhetoric is that free publicly provided schooling is guaranteed by statute. This position may be challenged by reference to two apparently insignificant practical examples of the way in which policy gives effect to privatisation in public…

Over the past decade, professionalism has become a keyword in early childhood education in New Zealand. The emphasis on "professionalism" in education often refers to increased accountability and outcome-focused approaches to teaching. The push to managerial performativity as a new hallmark of professionalism has led to arguments that…

Examines neoliberal educational policies in England and New Zealand related to school autonomy, school choice, private sector involvement, privatization, and accountability mechanisms. Argues that the rhetoric of neoliberal schooling policies is far removed from their reality, as governments confront the classic tension between fiscal imperatives…

Recent moves in many parts of the world to restructure and deregulate state education have sought to link significant degrees of institutional autonomy with an emphasis on parental choice and competition, thereby creating "quasi-markets" in education. This paper discusses such developments as part of a neo-liberal project for education…

This paper examines the legislative framework developed in New Zealand over the last 15 years to facilitate greater parental choice in education. The discussion is set within the context of changes to admission practices in a number of education systems to advance the privatisation agenda, and outlines the resurgence of interest in the development…