School choice has gained considerable popularity in recent decades as governments struggle to improve quality and reduce the cost of education by increasing competition among schools and decreasing the level of bureaucracy (Chubb & Moe, 1990). The trend towards reorganization of public service allocation for education has been a feature of…

This paper explores how "social democratic" Sweden initiated and implemented choice reforms that attracted the interest of "liberal" England. By studying how English media framed and portrayed the Swedish free school "export" from 2008 to 2014, this paper aims to describe and discuss how a market-oriented policy idea,…

In this paper we examine the role which distance, in a variety of forms, can play in the reproduction, intensification or reduction of educational inequality in different types of school systems in different countries. This is a very broad issue, and in the paper we examine the ways in which distance to school has emerged as an important factor in…

In the past 25 years, the English education system has experienced a substantial growth in alternative provision, that is, publicly funded schools that accept students from the general population without selection, but provide an educational setting different to the traditional, locally provided schools. Introduced in 2000 by the Labour Party,…

This article describes the social and economic "segregation" of students between schools in England, and the likely causes of its levels and changes over time. It involves a re-analysis of the intakes to all schools in England 1989-2011, and shows how strongly clustered the students are in particular schools. The pattern for primary-age…

This article concentrates on the policy reforms of schools in England, Germany, France and Italy, from 1988 to 2009, with a focus on the introduction of market accountability. Pressing demands for organisational change in schools, shaped by the objectives of "efficiency" and competition, which were introduced in England in the 1980s,…

The authors ask whether choice-driven education systems, with comprehensive schools and mass education at the secondary and tertiary level, represented in this article by England and Sweden, provide educational opportunities for ethnic minorities. In studying educational attainment, the authors make a theoretical distinction between mechanisms…

This article presents data drawn from interviews with a range of service providers and with the parents of pupils permanently excluded from alternative provision in England. The findings are considered in the context of recent policy developments in the area of children and families. These include the neo-liberal framing of parents as customers…

The structure of the English school system has been the subject of almost continuous change since the late-1980s. The most recent was commenced by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition government, which was elected in May 2010. This policy set in train, very quickly, processes through which all schools have been encouraged, and in some cases…

Governments around the world continue to grapple with issues relating to how preschool services should be delivered, what type of provision is most appropriate, and for what purpose. These issues are particularly pertinent in a fast evolving early years sector such as the United Kingdom and many parts of the world where early years education has…

This article, based on qualitative research in Greater Manchester, examines the experience of migrants in navigating the education system, and in particular in choosing secondary schools for their children. There has been extensive research on the process of choosing schools since the policy reforms of the 1980s, but none has examined how the…

Over the last decades, many liberal democracies have experienced a tension between the education system's expressed requirement to foster citizenship norms and the liberal (sub-)ideal of norm neutrality. This dilemma has been accentuated by, on the one hand, increased ethnical and cultural diversity and, on the other hand, liberalization of…

The authors review "White middle class identities and urban schooling," by D. Reay, G. Crozier and D. James. This book focuses on the perspectives of white middle-class parents who make "against"-the-grain school choices for their children in urban England. It provides key insights into the dynamics of class practising that are…

Families who choose to home educate generally do so due to dissatisfaction with school-based education. Common perceptions of home educators oscillate between images of the "tree-hugging hippy" and the "religious fanatic". Whilst attempting to go beyond such stereotypical dichotomies, this paper will examine three very…

This paper takes as its starting point the concept of concerted cultivation as coined by Annette Lareau. It examines whether a focus on concerted cultivation adequately captures the various practices observed in young women's experiences of being privately educated in four schools in one area of England. We suggest that a variety of practices of…