This article employs critical discourse analysis of the Spear's Schools Index of 'the best private schools in the world', the first such global ranking of schools, to understand representations of elite education in globalised societies. It argues that the Index is a powerful text that exemplifies a global gaze -- an imagined perspective from…

This article argues that special and inclusive education policies in Nepal have been influenced by neoliberal policy reforms. The study employs discourse analysis as a theoretical perspective to analyse the effects of market-based schooling practices on students with disabilities in Nepal. The findings of this study are informed to some extent by…

Critics of private school choice programs argue that they drain resources from public schools and increase taxpayer costs. Supporters of these programs, on the other hand, argue that these programs save taxpayers money because the average amount of scholarships is less than per pupil spending in public schools. Given these fiscal concerns, when…

Concerned about the deadening effects of standardization imposed by monopolistic education bureaucracies, policymakers in many different countries endorse economic-style mechanisms of consumer choice and competition between autonomous providers as the key elements of "market-driven" education. The reasoning behind this approach is that market…

This essay reviews research pertaining to the relative merits and drawbacks of expanding family choice in public education. A primary objective is to identify and explore tensions among competing objectives in the design of expanded choice systems. After an introductory section on goals and definitions, the second section explores how more family…