In this article, I examine a case involving an equity-minded parent caught in a quandary about which school to select for her child, knowing that her decision may have consequences for others. To do so, I heuristically construct a fictional portrait and explore the deliberative process a parent might have through a dialogue taking place among…

Public K-12 education is a one-size-fits-all system that cannot meet the diverse needs of students. When parents choose a school, they look at several criteria unique to their situation and make trade-offs between their preferences based on their needs. The purpose of this study was to explore the factors influencing parents to enroll their…

As school choice policies continue to become more prevalent nationally and internationally, educational scholars are interested in understanding how parents make school selection decisions. Existing studies of parental educational decision-making mainly explore how white, middle-class parents make educational decisions. There is limited research…

Flexischooling--the sharing of a child's education between home and school through formal agreement--is one of a range of 'alternative' education approaches that may adapt education to meet a child's special educational needs. This study considers qualitative data from an online survey conducted during November and December 2023 regarding parents'…

For many years, traditional public schools were the dominant publicly funded institutions for educating children. However, in recent years, parents selected from various school-choice educational options. The problem in one local school district in southeastern United States is that stakeholders of the traditional theme schools were unable to…

Finland has traditionally had a universal early childhood education and care (ECEC) system like the other Nordic countries, but in the last 15 years this system has undergone considerable marketisation and privatisation suggested to enable parental choice of ECEC. Much of the existing research on parental ECEC decisions has been conducted in…

Background: School choice models assume that parents and children have varied educational preferences and that catering to those preferences will result in superior educational experiences for all. Yet, we still know relatively little about how parents identify the best school "fit" for their children and families. This question is…

Despite homeschooling experiencing steady growth in recent decades, research is lacking to explain or theorize the complex interconnected network of factors and experiences behind parents choosing homeschooling in lieu of public or private school. According to the last twenty years of government surveys, the top reasons for homeschooling remain…

Understandings of gender diversity have increasingly recognised the rights and experiences of children and young people (Meyer & Pullen Sansfaçon, 2014, Smith et al., 2014). A small, but significant body of work focusses on the schooling experiences of gender diverse children/young people. The critical role parents play in supporting gender…

This paper illuminates the direct and profound implications of urban marginalisation on educational decisions. Using survey and interview data from Mumbai, we trace the distinct profiles of families who select public, private, and aided schools. Our effort to look closely at the distinct lives of these families and our conceptual framing, drawing…

This article examines a new trend of high school choice in China -- parental choice of emerging international high-school curriculum programs (IHSCPs) recently established by Chinese elite public high schools. We add to the existing critical literature on school choice by providing a detailed empirical analysis of why, how, and under what…

The purpose of this qualitative study was to identify decision-making factors from parents of Southeast Rural School District (SRSD) who chose to transfer their children to one of 14 cyber charter schools within Pennsylvania amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. This research study utilized a phenomenological design, consisting of qualitative electronic…

The purpose of this phenomenological qualitative study was to examine the decision-making process of K-12 parents living in the Appalachian Highlands who chose to remove their children from traditional public schools to join learning pods (sometimes referred to as pandemic pods) during the COVID-19 pandemic. In order to answer this overarching…

The purpose of this dissertation was to understand the decision-making process of school choice for Christian parents with preschool through elementary aged children. Hall's et al. (2002) values-based decision-making theory (VBDM) guided this qualitative descriptive study that incorporated two research questions. The two sources of data included…

In a time of proliferated school choice, how do families choose a K-12 setting for their child(ren) in the state of Missouri? For many families the decision may be easy, but for others, they had to experience one educational setting before choosing another to know what they value and prioritize in their child(ren)'s education. This qualitative…