Privatisation of educational provision at global level is inevitably the outcome of the neoliberalism (Apple, 2006). Turkey, since 1980s, have experienced the impact of the neoliberal policy in public education in the form of proliferation of private schools as well as distinctively hidden forms of privatization. Although the Turkish Constitution legally urges ‘free public education for all’, the privatization agenda (Ball and Youdell, 2008) and how it is implemented, leads to inequalities encompassing entangled and complicated results. Since the 1980s, private schools have proliferated in Turkey and this phenomenon has dramatically accelerated for the last 10 years. Although all schools are regulated by the Ministry of National Education, private schools have their autonomy in teacher and principal selection and providing the working conditions, which is determined by the individual owners’ or the Trusts’ own discretion. Similarly, in Israel, an increased trend of privitaization has been witnessed recently creating clashes between the different stakeholders with the privatizaton agenda (Ichilov, 2010). Some trends are evident in the gradual rise in private resources allocated to schools’ overall financing and operation (BenDavid-Hadar&Paulino, 2009). Many so-called marketing activities take place in private schools. Hence, teachers and principals find themselves working in such activities in addition to their instructional and educational responsibilities. For example, in Israel, principals when they had to get involved in school marketing activities, they tended not to internalize the assumptions and concepts underlying the philosophy of marketing, nor did they use components of the marketing process coherently and they took up a dual stance (Oplatka, 2002). Although the two countries pose differences in their forms of privatization of education, it is significant to explore the struggles and challenges of educators and school principals as the neoliberal tendencies evident in the privatization processes bring a variety of personal and professional pressures for school leaders and teachers at the private schools. Therefore, drawing on Apple’s (2006) conservative modernism and Ball’s (2012) power/knowledge discussions in privatization, we attempt to explore, compare and contrast the neoliberal challenges faced by the private school teachers and school principals in Turkey and Israel through qualitative-phenomenological research as this is an underexplored terrain in both countries. In this respect, 2 large private schools in each country were selected and teachers, school principals, assistant principals and general directors are being interviewed. Qualitative data analysis (Marshall&Rossmann, 2012) will be employed in analysing the data. Findings will be discussed during the session.

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