This paper uses Anderson's notion of 'imagined community' to argue that how people think about the publicness of their school system provides insight into the functioning and flourishing of communities, societies and nations. We focus on the privatisation of public schooling in Alberta, Canada and Northern England to highlight tensions between the…

Income inequality has been rising in Britain for two decades and wealth is also more unequally distributed now than when New Labour first came to power. Various factors have contributed to this, including education which, according to the PISA 2006 data, has more unequal outcomes in the UK than in all but 2 of the 29 tested countries. Comparative…

One of the key claims of choice advocates is that it will take diverse schooling options to engage all children in learning. In a school system truly open to new providers of instruction and diverse schooling options, private schools and public schools of choice can vie for customers by trying different subject themes and pedagogies. If a school's…

Many educational researchers have identified issues on classifying schools and some have made use of ad-hoc classification systems in their analyses; however, these solutions are generally one-dimensional, which prohibits them from capturing the full breadth of variation among schools. To understand the amount of variation that exist in schools…

In England, parents make "choices" (in reality, "preferences") for the state-maintained secondary schools they wish their child to attend. If there are more applicants than places, the school's published admissions criteria are used to give priority to applicants. This article examines how school composition in London varies by…

Attempts to understand the implications for education of an apparent paradox of the welfare state: a new culture of education has developed involving both individual autonomy and continuing attachment to public provision of education to ensure that autonomy. Compares England and Scotland to illustrate the complexity of the political debate. (DSK)

The Richmond (California) Unified School District's System for Choice allows parents and students to select from a variety of programs designed to satisfy diverse interests and needs. This publication describes offerings at De Anza High School, a Paideia school. De Anza is the only high school in the district that offers Classical Studies, a…

This report examines the educational opportunities offered by specially funded comprehensive secondary schools established in Israeli development towns during the 1960s. The results of an analysis of the 1980-81 academic year budgets of 51 schools in 26 towns, and an examination of the schools' absorption of students and their holding power, are…

In 1987, parents and teachers from diverse neighborhoods of a local school district in New York (New York) founded the Bronx New School, a small public elementary school of choice that was meant to be learner-centered, with high standards for all. The school was organized into heterogeneous, multi-age classes and structured to encourage…