Across Canada, school districts have been confronting a backlash to their equity and social justice initiatives. Critics of public education have been arguing that the solution to these controversies is to increase school choice. Using several examples from the United States, this paper argues that the endgame of these strategies is to undermine…

The article re-imagines the current developments of Swedish education into a possible future. Historically, education was organized and funded by the state; however, reforms towards privatization in the 1990s implemented school choice, private schools and a tax-financed voucher system with the option of turning profits on education. A new judicial…

Privatization of education has expanded dramatically worldwide in the last two decades, and Turkey is no exception. It is seen that the developments affecting the transformation of public services began with the implementation of neoliberal education policies, especially after the 1980s. These policies have led to a significant transformation in…

Privatization of education has become a prevalent global trend, representing a significant shift from viewing education as a public good to considering it as a private commodity. This transformation is closely tied to the modernization of the state under the principles of neoliberalism. A comprehensive analysis, as presented in this book using…

The three terms comprising the Obama and Trump presidencies provide an opportunity to understand the evolution of race-conscious education policy in an increasingly multiracial, unequal, and divided society. Through document review and interviews with civil rights lawyers, government officials, congressional staffers, and intermediary organization…

In 2020, Rick Hess and Pedro Noguera engaged in a long-running correspondence that tackled many of the biggest questions in education -- including topics like school choice, equity and diversity, testing, privatization, the achievement gap, social and emotional learning, and civics. They sought to unpack their disagreements, better understand one…

This paper focused on public funding to private providers of compulsory education in the context of globalisations. It analyses the differences and the common points between Brazil and Portugal (from 2014 to 2017) regarding the type of private providers in education, the mechanics and the reasons linked to the public funding to compulsory…

This paper addresses aspects of alternative proposals taking place in the public education system, based on an anthropological, ethnographic, comparative study of alternative schools and educational projects in Catalonia. More specifically, it first explores educational change in Catalonia through time and on the present, with a special focus on…

The Nordic countries are often perceived as a coherent group representing the Nordic model of welfare states, with a strong emphasis on the public provision of universal welfare and a strong concern with social equality. But today we see a change in the Nordic model as part of a global knowledge economy. The aim of this article is to examine…

Public education is a public good. It provides students with skills to take part in society and the economy. It gives students access to culture and traditions, as well as exposure beyond a narrow personal experience. But public education has broader social purposes and contributions as well. It is the basis for social benefits that are of value…

Since the 1970s business groups have staged the control of education, first in the form of partnerships with schools and universities to support science, math, and technology, and more recently in the form of venture philanthropy. This article examines how these business groups, including the "billionaire boys club" and their mega…

Social scientists have begun to document the stratifying effects of over a decade of unprecedented charter growth in urban districts. An exodus of students from traditional neighborhood schools to charter schools has attended this growth, creating troubling numbers of vacant seats in neighborhood schools as well as concentrating larger percentages…

With its shift to a market economy gathering speed from the 1990s, the Chinese Government embarked on an agenda that brought neoliberal forces into almost all sectors including education. The policies underpinned China's spectacular economic growth, but in education have had consequences that arguably are problematic. Drawing on a mixed-methods…

Given recent budgetary gaps in public education, many civic and educational leaders have relied upon private sources of funding for US public schools, including funds raised by parents. Yet parents' role as economic actors in public education has been largely unexplored. Drawing from a qualitative study of parent engagement, fundraising, and…

This paper surveys the delivery of school education in Chile over the last half-century. It focuses on evidence provided by recent academic studies on the impact of neoliberal education policies introduced by the military regime in the 1980s, and continued by successive democratic governments. It offers insights into recent popular critiques of…