Session Information
23 SES 04 B, Market Ideas and Practices (Part 2)
Paper Session
Contribution
The market has become a central mechanism in the regulation of the State (Jessop, 2002) and in the transition towards the consolidation of “market societies”. As one of the standpoints of this new framework for education services, choice is put in the centre of the picture and is related to a triad of concepts, which are democracy, freedom, and responsibility. These three terms are intimately interrelated and play a key role in the redefinition of the relationship between the members of the society and the State (Rose, 1999).
Our research focuses on some specific aspects of the introduction of forms of “privatisation(s)” in education. More concretely, we focus here on the implementation of school choice as a “policy technology” as “a form of discipline and regulation”, where markets, new managerialism and performativity together “constitute a new regime of public sector regulation” (Ball, 2007, p. 24).
This paper introduces some ideas on the new configuration of the market as one of those technologies that is critically redefining the organising parameters of the field of education. We are interested in understanding the development of the quasi-market model in Spain. More concretely, the analysis presented here explores how the effects of two interrelated policy technologies, that is choice and the introduction of private providers in the delivery of public education, has blurred, but strengthen at the same time, the traditional dynamics of social reproduction during the last three decades. We are also interested in the impact that all these processes could be exerting in the roles of different educational actors and in the formation of new purposes, obligations, and dispositions, within the educational system. Finally, we would like to evaluate the effects of that those privatization dynamics on the inclusion/exclusion processes of the educational system, both in Spain and, more concretely, in the two autonomous communities, Andalusia and Madrid, that take part in the research.
In reality, during the last almost thirty years, Spain has become the forth country in Europe in the percentage of private schools (Eurydice, 2009). Though the percentage of “pure” private schools is not one of the bigger ones, once the amount of private schools that are funded by the State is added to the picture, the situation changes drastically. This situation tends to go unnoticed, but this data brings the need to analyse more deeply the Spanish situation by interweaving complementary economic, political and sociological perspectives. Though an important number of those studies have being developed in the last decade, they are based on quantitative methodological designs. Without wanting to underestimate the importance to the previous research, in the final section of the paper, we claim that a more qualitative approach is needed if we are to undercover the logics, functioning, and effect of broader dynamics of social reproduction embedded in the market relations.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Ball, S. (2007). Education PLC. London: Routledge. Ball, S. J. (2009). Privatising education, privatising education policy, privatising educational research: network governance and the ‘competition state’. Journal of Education Policy, 24(1), 83 - 99. Ball, S. J., & Youdell, D. C. (2008). Hidden Privatisation in Public Education. Research Report. Brussels: Education International. Belfield, C. R., & Levin, H. M. (2002). Education privatization: causes, consequences and planning implications. Paris: UNESCO. Bonal, X. (2003): “The Neoliberal Educational Agenda and the Legitimation Crisis: old and new state strategies”. British Journal of Sociology of Education 2003, 24(2) 159-175 Burch, P. (2009). Hidden Markets. New York: Routledge. Calero, J. (1998). Una Evaluación de los Cuasimercados como Instrumento de Mejora para la Reforma del Sector Público. Bilbao: Fundación BBV. Jessop, R. (2002). The future of the capitalist state. London: Polity. Kohn, A. & Shannon, P. (Eds.), Education Inc: Turning learning into a business, Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Levin, H. M. (2003). The Marketplace In Education. Occasional Paper No. 86, National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education. Teachers College, Columbia University. Lubienski, C. (2006). School Diversification in Second-Best Education Markets. Educational Policy, 20(2), 323-344. Miller, P., & Rose, N. (1997). Mobilising the consumer: assembling the suject of consumption. Theory, Culture and Society, 14(1), 1-36. Rhodes, R. A. W. (1994). The hollowing out of the state: the changing nature of the public service in. Britain, Political Quarterly Review, 65, 137–151. Rose, Nikolas (1999) Powers of freedom: reframing political thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Saltman, K. J. (2000). The Edison schools: Corporate schooling and the assault on pulic education. New York: Routledge. Villaroya, A. (2000). La Financiación de los Centros Concertados. Madrid: MECD. Whitty, G., Power, S. & Halpin, D. (1998). Devolution and choice in education: The school, the state and the market. Buckingham, UK: Open University Press.
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