Patterns of ‘public‐school markets’ in the Finnish comprehensive school from a comparative perspective

The article examines school choice in the context of the Finnish, publicly owned and governed comprehensive school system, the ‘named public‐school markets’, and compares findings to similar studies done in other countries. Parental choice is used in addition to traditional catchment areas and has now settled in the educational policy of big cities since its introduction in Finland in the mid 1990s. The focus of this article is on the extent and direction of pupils' preferences between the schools in relation to the characteristics of the schools in order to understand what kind of patterns have been formed along with the school choice. At the turn of the year 2000, half of the age group transferring to the 7th grade applied for a place in an other than catchment area school in the capital city, and on average one‐third of those in the other four big cities. The local public school markets touched every school in the urban areas. The schools were divided into popular, rejected, and balanced schools on the basis of net gains in request flows. A detailed analysis of the preferences between schools is presented in a map. Patterns of operation of the local school markets in the four case cities showed astoundingly similar features to those reported in studies conducted in other countries.     

A Panic about School Choice

It is now widely recognised that Britain's comprehensive system was never truly comprehensive. Families with sufficient financial capital were always able to ensure the entry of their children to particularly prestigious ‘comprehensive’ schools by purchasing a home within the appropriate catchment areas. According to government rhetoric, recent legislation established a market of schools, removed catchment areas and gave parents greater choice of school. This case‐study examines the workings of the local quasi‐market of schools within a prosperous town (Sutton Coldfield, England) which is part of the larger metropolitan area of the West Midlands. Because of a change in the age of entry to secondary education, Sutton Coldfield was first plunged into the market in 1992. This case‐study shows that the new situation initially caused confusion and anger. Some Sutton Coldfield residents were denied places for their children within the town and were instead offered places for their children in Birmingham working‐class estate schools. The article describes the formation and activities of a local pressure group which opposed these changes, and reports the results of a small‐scale study of a sample of parents’ choice‐making processes in 1993. It is shown that access to financial and cultural capital had become more, rather than less, important in the process of allocating children to secondary schools.     

Shopping for schools or shopping for peers: public schools and catchment area segregation

Market theory positions the consumer as a rational choice actor, making informed schooling choices on the basis of ‘hard’ evidence of relative school effectiveness. Yet there are concerns that parents simply choose schools based on socio-demographic characteristics, thus leading to greater social segregation and undercutting the potential of choice to drive quality improvements. In this paper, we explore segregation by examining catchment areas for a range of public high schools in a specific middle-class urban area. We focus on socio-demographic characteristics, including levels of income, country of birth and religion affiliation, in order to explore residential segregation according to public high school catchment areas. Our data suggest distinct residential segregation between catchment areas for each public school within our data-set, particularly for the schools deemed to be popular and rejected, that may pose risks for broader equity concerns. We argue that, in contrast to market theory, even more affluent and active choosers are not equipped with information on the programmatic quality of their different school options, but instead may be relying on socio-demographic characteristics of schools – through surrogate information about the urban spaces that the schools occupy – in order to choose peer groups, if not programmes, for their children.     

Reputation and parental logics of action in local school choice space in Finland

Differences in reputation between schools and in classes within schools shape parental choice in the Finnish urban context, even if the differences in school performance and the risks of making a ‘bad’ choice are relatively small. This study analyses the instrumental and expressive orders of schools in a specific educational context. Two overlapping local school choice spaces emerge: the local space of school catchment areas, and the selective space of the city in interaction with neighbouring cities. Entry into the selective space requires different forms of parental capital, and may reproduce educational and social distinctions. Institutions that provide less future exchange value according to the parental conceptions, with socially and ethnically mixed student populations and low expectations of pupils’ contentment are seen to be worth avoiding. The discussion on the choice between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ schools seems to be superficial and to conceal certain educational reproduction processes, which do not officially exist in the Finnish education system. Choosing between classes (general and classes with special emphasis) within a school also works as a distinction strategy.     

School Choice and the Politics of Parenthood: Exploring Parent Mobilization As a Catalyst for the Common Good

A substantial body of research has shown how white, middle-class parents in urban school districts use school choice as a tool to pursue educational advantages for their children. The purpose of this qualitative research was to examine the debate over neighborhood schools and school choice among a diverse group of parents in a gentrifying, yet highly diverse New York City neighborhood that I call “Prospect Point.” My central focus was studying a parent advocacy group that supports neighborhood schools. Findings show that about one third of families living in Prospect Point choose to send their children to charter or gifted and talented (G&T) schools located outside of the neighborhood. Given this outflow of parents and resources via school choice, most of the gentrifier parents in the sample who opted in to the local schools viewed their choice as a politically charged decision, and they credited the parent advocacy group as having influenced it. As a group, they rejected the consumer model of school choice, which they believed put the local schools at a disadvantage and was the norm for their racial/ethnic and socioeconomic demographic. Opt-in parents in this context recognized their privilege, and their children’s privilege, in the school-choice process and actively sought to diminish it through their choice to opt in. This research has important implications for the transformative role that parent mobilization can play in the future of diverse, high-quality public education and our democratic society.     

The influence of the school in the decision to participate in learning post‐16

The primary aim of this study, funded by the Department for Education and Skills, was to identify the nature and influence of school‐based factors in the choices of young people about their post‐16 education, training and career pathways. The study also contributes to the wider understanding of ‘choice’, and identifies implications for the development of careers education and guidance and decision‐making awareness amongst pupils and students in schools. It also further enhances the modelling of pupil decision making in education and training markets, and in labour markets. The research is based on a series of qualitative interviews in 24 schools across nine local education authorities. Focus groups were undertaken with young people in years 10, 11 and 12. Interviews were also conducted with head teachers, heads of year and heads of careers. A postal survey of parents was also undertaken. Four key school‐based factors were found to have a very strong influence in the choices and decisions of young people about their post‐16 education, training and career pathways. These were: whether the school had a sixth form or not; the characteristics of school leadership, ethos and values; the socio‐economic status (SES) of the schools' catchment; and the organisation and delivery of careers education and guidance at the school level. In the main, high SES schools see themselves as developing pupils for academic university careers, while low SES schools maintain a rather stronger commitment to vocational pathways. The academic ethos of schools offers a very powerful influence on post‐16 choices and decisions of pupils. The usual interventions put in place to influence choices and decisions appear to have greater impact in schools with a less robust academic vision.     

Exit,choice and loyalty: the impact of parental choice on admissions to secondary schools in Edinburgh and Dundee

This paper analyses the effects of parental choice on first‐year admissions to 20 non‐denominational secondary schools in Edinburgh and ten in Dundee. Although Dundee is a more working‐class city than Edinburgh, the take‐up of placing requests in Dundee was somewhat higher than in Edinburgh. There was a substantial increase in the take‐up of placing requests in both cities over the period 1982‐85 (from 13.5% to 21.0% of the S1 intake in Edinburgh and from 14.0% to 23.7% in Dundee). In each city, there was evidence of bandwagon effects ‐ some schools gained an increasing proportion of their S1 intakes through parental choice while others lost an increasing proportion of their intakes for this reason. However, the imposition of intake limits on three of the ‘most popular’ secondary schools in Edinburgh not only decreased the number of requests for those schools but also reduced the outflows from the ‘least popular’ schools. The paper uses logistic regression to calculate the effects of extra travelling distance and a variety of school and catchment area variables on the odds of moving between all possible pairs of schools in the two cities. Distance was the best predictor of movement and few pupils moved to schools which would have entailed much extra travelling; after distance, school attainment measures were most highly correlated with movement. However, stepwise multiple regression indicated that, for schools which were a given distance apart and similar in terms of attainment, moves were towards schools in more working‐class areas. Thus, there was some evidence to suggest that parents were choosing more effective schools. Finally, the paper uses spatial methods to show how placing requests have resulted in large flows out of secondary schools serving the least prosperous local authority housing schemes into adjacent, often previously selective, schools with much more mixed catchment areas, and points to the growth of substantial inequalities among secondary schools which are formally equal in status.     

School Admissions after the School Standards and Framework Act: Bringing the LEAs back in?

Historically, LEAs were responsible for the local planning and provision of schools. They 'mattered' because their organisational strategies and admissions policies contributed to the structure and equality of opportunities for families and children in their administrative areas. Some moved ahead with comprehensive schools earlier and faster than others, and some retained selection. Alongside admissions policies, these activites in turn shaped and reproduced the extent to which local schools were socially segregated. LEA capacity to shape the local school system was always constrained by the existence of the faith-based 'voluntary' schools sector and was further diminished, post-1988, by self-governing grant-maintained (GM) schools. The 1998 Schools Standards and Framework Act brought LEAs back into the admissions arena. In this paper we examine LEAs' admissions policies and the extent to which these regulate local patterns of socio-economic segregation between schools. In this study we draw on a sample of 74 LEAs to explore these issues. Our findings point to some interesting paradoxes, most notably the fact that the most commonly used criterion in the allocation of students to places, catchment areas, is likely to create and sustain socio-economically segregated patterns of secondary schooling because these are linked in complex ways to residential segregation. We also show that selective education is strongly associated with high levels of stratified schooling and that voluntary and specialist schools also contribute to local patterns of school segregation.     

School autonomy in a society with multi-faceted political references: the search for new ways of coordinating action

The French school is changing from a pyramid-like structure where all schools are conceived as units executing decisions made at the top into one organized on a network basis with schools as basic units linked together through ‘conventions’. There are conventions between schools on how to allocate specialized options and clientele in each catchment area, conventions between schools and local political authorities or firms concerning resources, etc. This article examines the evolving relationship between these two models from the beginning of the 1980s. It first points out their limits: while the increase in the power of local political authorities over schools through the allocation of complementary subsidies is an undeniable fact, initiatives concerning actual teaching activities remain quite modest. Secondly, it shows that the state has progressively abandoned the idea of reaching local consensus on education-related values in favour of a more pragmatic view of local compromises on certain key measures. Finally, the article examines the link between school autonomy and educational equality.     

A Review of the Empirical Research on Private School Choice

Parents in the United States have had the legal right to choose the school their child attends for a long time. Traditionally, parental school choice took the form of families moving to a neighborhood with good public schools or self-financing private schooling. Contemporary education policies allow parents in many areas to choose from among public schools in neighboring districts, public magnet schools, public charter schools, private schools through the use of a voucher or tax-credit scholarship, virtual schools, or even homeschooling. The newest form of school choice is education savings accounts (ESAs), which make a portion of the funds that a state spends on children in public schools available to their parents in spending accounts that they can use to customize their children's education. Opponents claim that expanding private school choice yields no additional benefits to participants and generates significant harms to the students “left behind” in traditional public schools. A review of the empirical research on private school choice finds evidence that private school choice delivers some benefits to participating students—particularly in the area of educational attainment—and tends to help, albeit to a limited degree, the achievement of students who remain in public schools.     

The effects of a free school choice policy on parents’ school choice behaviour

Recently, European school systems have seen various attempts to ‘modernise’ their governance. Market and competition oriented reforms have not been central to governance innovation strategies in German speaking countries, however, their number and relevance is rising in recent years. A free school choice policy which abolishes “school districts” which legally define fixed school catchment areas was introduced in the school year of 2007/2008 in the Austrian city of Linz.The effects of the implementation of this policy on the primary school sector were studied by a standardised questionnaire administered to a representative sample of 3425 parents of five age groups of primary school children. The return rate was about 55%. By special measures during data collection a satisfactory representation of parents with migrant background was achieved.Three questions are discussed in the paper: (1) Is there a rise in segregation in schools as a result of free choice policy? (2) Is there a change in the composition of the student population in different schools as a result of free choice policy? (3) Is there a change in parent school choice behaviour of as a result of free choice policy?Our data indicates that segregation in primary schools with respect to ethnic and social family characteristics increases after the policy implementation, but the sample size is too small to find significant results. In addition, no significant change is observed in the social composition of schools. In accordance with the previous findings no significant modifications of choice behaviour occur for different ethnic or social groups after free choice. However changes in choice motives can be observed.     

Working successfully towards inclusion—or excluding pupils? A comparative retroductive study of three similar schools in their work with EBD

Sweden uses municipally run pupil referral units (PRUs) for students displaying emotional behavioural difficulties (EBD). This study investigates one Swedish municipality where transfers of students to PRUs were related to school practices favouring either inclusion or exclusion. A purposeful sampling procedure was used to select three elementary schools with regard to their success (school A) or failure (B and C) in keeping pupils with problematic behaviours at school. These three schools are in catchment areas with similar socio-economic conditions. A mixed methods research design was combined with comparative case studies in a retroductive approach. School A had only one pupil transferred to a PRU in 10 years, whereas such transfers from B and C were almost tenfold. School A distinguished itself from the other two schools by its number of inclusive qualities. This school succeeded in keeping almost all students without depriving other students of their rightful learning.     

School Choice and the Polarization of Public Schools in A Global City: A Bourdieusian GIS Approach

ABSTRACT

Over the past three decades, urban sociologists have shed light on the intensifying social inequality between the wealthiest and poorest neighborhoods in global cities; yet limited research has been done to illuminate the relationships between urban polarization and school choice (i.e., where parents choose schools for their children). This study sociospatially examines the patterns of secondary school choice in the global city of Toronto to illuminate the relationship between urban polarization and school choice. In doing so, this study combines Pierre Bourdieu’s sociospatial theory with a geographic information systems (GIS) approach. Overall, we found that popular schools and schools with specialized choice programs tend to be located in high-status neighborhoods, defined as neighborhoods with residents in the top 20% of family income, home prices, education attainment, and representation from the dominant culture. We also show that mobile students who choose popular schools or highly sought-after specialized programs tend to come from advantaged neighborhoods. Meanwhile, local students who choose a regular school in their neighborhood tend to come from low-status neighborhoods. With a new interdisciplinary approach, this study contributes to a more spatialized understanding of how social inequality and polarization account for school choice.     

My So-Called Choice: The Trappings of School Choice for Non-Admits

Exploratory research investigates how students in a neighborhood high school navigate the complex school choice admissions process in New York City. Four years of in-depth, longitudinal interviews with thirty minority youth explores how their status as non-admits (students rejected from all schools) shapes their perceptions of peers and experiences in school. Non-admits feel duped into attending stigmatized neighborhood schools and believe their peers cannot be trusted. Analysis suggests school choice research and policy can be improved by: (1) considering students’ participation in the decision-making process; (2) investigating students who only receive the trappings of choice; (3) integrating the social consequences of school choice into current policy discussions and; (4) analyzing how the quality of officially published information about schools influences decision-making.     

State disinvestment,technologies of choice and ‘fitting in’: neoliberal transformations in US public education

Given state cuts to US public education, overcrowding and underfunding in urban district schools continue to grow. Yet, how parents understand the role of state disinvestment on underfunded and overcrowded public schools remains relatively unexamined. Drawing from an ethnographic study of school choice in Arizona, I explore how a group of white parents from diverse income and educational levels, who exited their child from a district school to enroll in a charter school, articulated state disinvestment in their everyday lives. Findings show that parents blamed local schools for what were largely the effects of state disinvestment. In particular, parents connected underfunding and overcrowding with a lack of district responsiveness to individual concerns to express the view that dire conditions were a personal and not a collective problem. Concurrent with the view that they were ‘were forced to choose’ a charter school due to a lack of district responsiveness, parents developed the belief that choice makes education more equal, especially for students who don’t ‘fit in’ to the district school. In total, findings highlight how technologies of choice enter into local cultural and material struggles to transform the relationship between parents and schools from a social to an economic one.     

Every school a school of choice: school choice in Ireland as viewed through American eyes

‘Choice’ and ‘freedom’ as measured by the ability of parents to select their children's schools are deeply embedded in the national ethos of the United States of America. Wealthy American parents have always exercised school choice but minority and lowincome students are often trapped in failing schools. This paper is based on research conducted in a purposive sample of Irish primary schools into the nature of school choice. The authors examine five aspects of the Irish national primary school system that could provide models for American educators, whose vision often stops at the boundaries of the United States: education law, school choice for all, a national curriculum framework, the role of assessment, and the role of parents and educators in the creation of new schools. While arguably the five relate directly to school choice of different degrees, they collectively weave a web whereby school systems in the Republic of Ireland and the USA may productively be compared to the benefit of both.     

Teachers´ experiences of school choice from ´marginalised´ and ´privileged´ public schools in Oslo

ABSTRACT

Oslo introduced a combination of school choice, per capita funding, balanced management and accountability in their public schools. Recent studies point out that this has increased segregation. In this study, teachers have been interviewed about their experiences. Bernstein´s classification and framing tools have been used to analyse the consequences for schools and relations between schools and parents/students. ´Marginalised´ and ´privileged´ schools find themselves in negative and positive spirals when it comes to popularity. These spirals are classed, raced and, (in upper secondary school), also gendered. Since attracting the ´right´ students and avoiding getting the ´wrong´ ones is essential for both school categories, school choice creates a mutual interest between the school and privileged parents/students in fortifying the latter´s voice. Three findings are especially interesting: 1. Cream skimming occurs in undersubscribed schools in a strictly public-school context. 2. School choice affects internal priorities in marginalised schools so that segregation at the class level increases, thus the educational context may be more segregated than what is indicated by school level information. 3. School choice increases segregation in the local communities, as two schools near each other may have very different student compositions. Segregation is thus not only explained by segregated housing.     

Rural Communities Lacking Multi-Sector Schooling Options: Indiana’s School Choice Deserts

ABSTRACT

Despite Indiana’s school choice landscape – including private school vouchers, tax-credit scholarships, inter-district and intra-district enrollment, magnet schools, and charter schools – not all Indiana communities have reasonable access to options outside of their traditional public schools. This research explores what lack-of-reasonable access differences – defined as greater than a 30-minute one-way drive time to a choice school – exist by locale, with a focus on rural communities. Geospatial analysis is used to identify “school choice deserts” lacking multi-sector schooling options in various communities. These deserts tend to exist wholly or mostly in rural areas, although Indiana students in grades K–8 exhibit greater access levels to non-traditional schools than those in high school.     

异地中考政策促进随迁子女选择高中教育吗

为促进义务后教育公平,国家和地方政府出台了异地中考政策。利用“中国教育追踪调查”基线数据中的1071个九年级随迁子女数据,采用多项分类logistic回归分析方法,实证检验了异地中考政策的不同入学条件对随迁子女高中教育选择的影响作用。研究发现,当异地中考政策的入学门槛为“只能报考普通高中”时,对随迁子女选择普通高中没有显著影响;当异地中考政策的入学门槛为“可报考重点高中”时,对随迁子女选择普通高中具有显著促进作用;当异地中考政策的入学门槛为“不能报考普通高中”时,对随迁子女选择职业高中没有显著促进作用。