According to James Harvey, the scale of the 2011 effort to privatize public education through vouchers and charters is "staggering," representing the culmination of a 30-year assault on public service in general and public education in particular. At a time when states are staring into the abyss of bankruptcy, he notes, public funds intended for…

In this paper we illustrate the relationships between Teach For America (TFA) and federal charter school reform to interrogate how policy decisions are shaped by networks of individuals, organizations, and private corporations. We use policy network analysis to create a visual representation of TFA's key role in developing and connecting…

The Private higher education sector is growing fast in many settings, including India, and there are variations at the national level. Privatization of higher education in India has been the result of changes in the economic policy towards liberalization and privatization by the Government of India. Till 1980, higher education sector was…

This paper compares over a 12-year period (1) patterns of contracting between a state transportation agency and its prime contractors providing engineering design services with (2) patterns between these prime contractors and their subcontractors. We find evidence of different contracting patterns at each level that emerge over time and coexist in…

A review of American charter schools and Swedish free-school research is outlined, providing strong evidence that both free-market models are flawed in their claims of enhancing young people's educational experience. A substantial body of work is included that strongly indicates charter and free schools increase social segregation and lower…

Teachers in England and Wales are involved in the largest campaign of industrial action since the mid-1980s. At the heart of their grievances are government plans to abolish a national framework for teachers' pay and the removal of important safeguards relating to working conditions. Wider questions of workload and pensions are also involved. This…

As it is in many countries in the world, in Turkey the effects of neoliberal ideology have rapidly increased since the 1980s, and social and economic structure has been transformed. Education, which is the basic dynamic of constructing social and economic structure and regeneration, stands in the center of neoliberalism. In this process, what…

Social justice in education refers to the expectation that the education system provides fairness in its access to opportunities and results. Proponents of educational privatisation believe this would not only open up opportunities for those that otherwise are restricted from attending good schools, but that it would also improve overall…

The phenomenon of low-cost private schools "mushrooming" in poor areas of sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, and elsewhere, is now well-documented. Findings from research by the author's teams and others show that these schools are serving a majority (urban and peri-urban) or significant minority (rural) of the poor, including…

This paper is a theoretical effort to support but complicate critiques of disaster capitalism and neoliberal strategies to profit from public education. We put into conversation a discursive analysis following Michel Foucault and a spatial analysis following Henri Lefebvre that focus on monumentalized disasters. We argue that neoliberalism carries…

This article discusses some of the consequences of collectivization and subsequent privatization of handicraft in China in the second half of the 20th century on ways of learning and modes of apprenticeship. It argues that, after the privatization of the ceramics workshops of Dingshu, Jiangsu province, an ethos of sharing previously introduced by…

The Conservative-led Coalition government in Britain is strongly committed to a programme of austerity. In the short term, this is a programme which makes more difficult the country's exit from a period of recession and slow growth; in the longer term, it threatens cuts and privatisation which call into question the welfare state. Yet,…

The past decade has witnessed a notable shift in the international education policy environment, characterized by a rapid growth in private educational provision. In the context of a divisive debate on the role of the non-state sector in primary and secondary education, this paper grapples with the theoretical underpinnings of both advocacy and…

School choice advocates often assume that market-like competition will create a dynamic K-12 educational environment that will result in improved outcomes. We critically examine this assumption and draw on the literature on market failure and social dilemmas to demonstrate that the market metaphor in a public schooling context has limited utility.…

For more than two decades, governments around the world, led by the English-speaking polities, have moved higher education systems closer to the forms of textbook economic markets. Reforms include corporatisation, competitive funding, student charges, output formats and performance reporting. But, no country has established a bona fide economic…