From the late 1970s, market forces were stimulated in the public domain, resulting in the emergence of hybrid organisations with both public and private components. This development is also visible in education. These processes of market forces and hybridisation in education pose a number of challenges for researchers. Firstly, the classical idea of ‘public’ and ‘private’ elements as separate concepts no longer offers a plausible theoretical framework for understanding these complex developments. Researchers have therefore proposed to exchange the public-private dichotomy for a more multidimensional scale to acknowledge this ‘hybridisation’ of education. Second, this increasing public-private entanglement raises the question of whether this development indicates an erosion of the public character of education and of public values. We need a multi-dimensional model in which we can make visible the degree of 'publicness' or 'privateness' per dimension and explore which combinations are or are not beneficial for the quality, accessibility and affordability of education. However, no such model has yet been developed to analyse this hybridisation of education and to evaluate the impact of public-private entanglements on the public character of education. Without insight into which dimensions are affected by these processes, little can be said about the effects of this hybridity on public values. In this paper, we take a first step in the development of a multidimensional model for hybrid organizations in education. We build on models from public administration and organization theory and insights from educational philosophy. The model contains a descriptive-empirical aspect (the different dimensions of hybridity) and a normative element: the extent to which specific forms of hybridity have an impact on public values. With this model, we aim to engage participants in a discussion about which combinations of public and private characteristics influence which specific values of public education.

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