Geographies Of Globalized Education Privatization

This book explores the complex and various forms that privatization of education takes on a global scale at different ages of schooling. Through the spread of neoliberal policies in education both in the global North and the global South, the book suggests that this process is leading to new forms of schooling and socio-spatial dynamics linked to the creation of increasingly competitive school markets. The book highlights some of the main issues that such competition generates by focusing on the acceleration of the segregative processes on one hand but also on the alternatives that are emerging regarding this global context on the other hand. It considers processes of domination, hegemony, but also exclusion and segregation, eventually exploring contradictions inherent to societies. It presents innovative empirical and conceptual research by international scholars from the fields of social geography, sociology, history and demography in the United States, Lebanon, France, Afghanistan and Chile, thereby transcending disciplinary boundaries. Developed in under or unexplored contexts, the book broadens the reflection to social representations, individual and collective strategies, adaptation, innovation and also resistances.

Education privatization is a global phenomenon that has crystallized in countries with very different cultural, political, and economic backgrounds. In this book, the authors examine how privatization policies are being adopted and why so many countries are engaging in this type of education reform. The authors explore the contexts, key personnel, and policy initiatives that explain the worldwide advance of the private sector in education, and identify six different paths toward education privatization—as a drastic state sector reform (e.g., Chile, the U.K.), as an incremental reform (e.g., the U.S.A.), in social-democratic welfare states, as historical public-private partnerships (e.g., Netherlands, Spain), as de facto privatization in low-income countries, and privatization via disaster. Book Features: The first comprehensive, in-depth investigation of the political economy of education privatization at a global scale.An analysis of the different strategies, discourses, and agents that have contributed to advancing (and resisting) education privatization trends. An examination of the role of private corporations, policy entrepreneurs, philanthropic organizations, think-tanks, and teacher unions. “Rich in examples, careful in its analysis, important in its conclusions and recommendations for further work, this book is a vital, rigorous, up-to-date resource for education policy researchers.” —Stephen J. Ball, University College London “Few issues are as significant as is education privatization across the globe; few treatments of this issue offer both the breadth and nuanced understanding that this book does.” —Christopher Lubienski, Indiana University

With contributions from Linda Darling-Hammond, Michael Fullan, Pasi Sahlberg, and Martin Carnoy, Global Education Reform is an eye-opening analysis of national educational reforms and the types of high-achieving systems needed to serve all students equitably. The collection documents the ideologically and educationally distinctive approaches countries around the world have taken to structuring their education systems. Focusing on three pairs of case studies written by internationally acclaimed experts, the book provides a powerful analysis of the different ends of an ideological spectrum----from strong state investments in public education to market-based approaches. An introductory chapter offers an overview of the theories guiding both neoliberal reforms such as those implemented in Chile, Sweden and the United States with efforts to build strong and equitable public education systems as exemplified by Cuba, Finland and Canada. The pairs of case studies that follow examine the historical evolution of education within an individual country and compare and contrast national educational outcomes. A concluding chapter dissects the educational outcomes of the differing economic and governance approaches, as well as the policy implications.

This open access book explores the complex relationship between schooling as a set of practices embedded in educational institutions and their specific spatial dimensions from different disciplinary perspectives. It presents innovative empirical and conceptual research by international scholars from the fields of social geography, pedagogy, educational and social sciences in Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Czechia, Hungary, Austria, Switzerland, Norway and Canada. The book covers a broad range of topics, all examined from a spatial perspective: the governance of schooling, the transition processes of and within national school systems, the question of small schools in peripheral areas as well as the embeddedness of schooling in broader processes of social change. Transcending disciplinary boundaries, the book offers deep insights into current theoretical debates and empirical case studies within the broad research field encompassing the complex relationship between education and space.

Attempts at Market Repositioning -- Conclusion -- Note -- References -- Chapter 10 The Influence of Neoliberalism in South African and U.S. Education Reform: Desegregation, Choice, and Inequalities -- Introduction -- Privatization, Marketization, and Equity -- School Segregation and Quasi-choice in South Africa -- Post-apartheid Education Reforms and School Choice -- Concluding Remarks -- Notes -- References -- Index

Geography matters to elite schools — to how they function and flourish, to how they locate themselves and their Others. Like their privileged clientele they use geography as a resource to elevate themselves. They mark, and market, place. This collection, as a whole, reads elite schools through a spatial lens. It offers fresh lines of inquiry to the ‘new sociology of elite schools.’ Collectively the authors examine elite schools and systems in different parts of the world. They highlight the ways that these schools, and their clients, operate within diverse local, national, regional, and global contexts in order to shape their own and their clients’ privilege and prestige. The collection also points to the uses of the transnational as a resource via the International Baccalaureate, study tours, and the discourses of global citizenship. Building on research about social class, meritocracy, privilege, and power in education, it offers inventive critical lenses and insights particularly from the ‘Global South.’ As such it is an intervention in global power/knowledge geographies.

This text explores how the dynamics of globalization and privatization have influenced State policy and impacted education reform in Honduras. It makes the argument that understanding education reform in post-colonial contexts requires that scholars go beyond a surface-level description of such trends as privatization to consider, in addition, the ways that the logics, practices, and relationships that characterized colonialism continue to be embedded in the apparatus of modern States. The first part of the volume documents historical trends and the evolution of privatisation in Honduras, while the second part explicitly engages in an extended discussion of State theory, before shifting to present a framework for depicting how these logics are the foundational layer upon which states and global governance have been constructed. The framework draws upon scholarship from political economy, world systems, and post-colonialism to depict the "ethos of privatization" at the core of post-colonial States, wherein what drives the system is private benefit, in the interest of individuals and their networks, but not in the interest of those outside the State. Applying this unique framework to the case of Honduras and offering empirical analysis of the Honduran education sector, the changing role and priorities of the State, and the increasing involvement of international organizations, NGOs, and private actors in the provision of education, the text increases understanding of how State theory interacts with broader global dynamics to impact education. This text will benefit researchers, academics, and educators with a focus on international and comparative education, policy analysis, globalization, and international development.

This volume features scholars who use a critical geography framework to analyze how constructions of social space shape education reform. In particular, they situate their work in present-day neoliberal policies that are pushing responsibility for economic and social welfare, as well as education policy and practice, out of federal and into more local entities. States, cities, and school boards are being given more responsibility and power in determining curriculum content and standards, accompanied by increasing privatization of public education through the rise of charter schools and for-profit organizations’ incursion into managing schools. Given these pressures, critical geography’s unique approach to spatial constructions of schools is crucially important. Reterritorialization and deterritorialization, or the varying flows of people and capital across space and time, are highlighted to understand spatial forces operating on such things as schools, communities, people, and culture. Authors from multiple fields of study contribute to this book’s examination of how social, political, and historical dimensions of spatial forces, especially racial/ethnic and other markers of difference, shape are shaped by processes and outcomes of school reform.