The privatization of public services is achieving greater importance and is gaining speed in most countries worldwide. This does not simply concern the provision of public services in a narrow sense, but means a redefinition of the concept of ‘public service’ and the State itself. A re-centralisation is taking place, where the State still plays a crucial role but is closer linked to the economy at all levels – from the global to the local (Dale et al. 2009). The state increasingly acts as a ‘market-maker’, actively promoting, coordinating and regulating market conditions of what was formerly publicly provided services. In this context, education is not only supposed to serve economic growth but increasingly also to constitute a market per se (Ball 2007). Furthermore the work of schools is transformed by importing ideas, methods and practices from the business sector (New Public Management, new managerialism). Privatization of education is thus both external and internal, the latter often expressed in other terms, e.g. as school development, choice and effectiveness (Ball & Youdell 2008).

This development does not happen in a vacuum or as part of an innocuous global conver­gence pro­cess neither can it be understood as a homogenous model that spreads randomly. This symposium will analyse and compare national adaptations of privatisation dynamics in European countries that represent three different welfare-state regimes – the liberal, the social-demo­cratic and sub-protective (Esping-Andersen 1996, Gallie & Paugam 2000). More concretely, the papers will analyse the cases of Italy, Spain, Sweden and England, and con­sider aspects related to both exogenous and endogenous privatization within these national educational systems. Among other things the papers raise questions of its impact on the roles of different educational actors and in the formation of new purposes, obligations, and dispositions, as well as the transformation of the notion of knowledge and curriculum contents within the national educational systems.

Analysing the dynamics of privatisation of education represents theoretical as well as meth­od­o­logical challenges as the phenomena of research are transformed when the market logic permeates and changes the meaning of schools and education, and when the basic sources of information increasingly are situated in the business sphere rather than the public sector. The symposium will also discuss this kind of questions. 

References

Ball, S. J. (2007). Education Plc: understanding private sector participation in public sector. New York: Routledge.

Ball, S. J. & Youdell, D. (2008). Hidden Privatisation in Education. Brussels: Education International. http://download.ei-ie.org/docs/IRISDocuments/Research%20Website%20Documents/2009-00034-01-E.pdf

Dale, R. & Robertson, S. (2009). Globalisation and Europeanisation in Education. Oxford: Symposium Books.

Esping-Andersen, G., ed. (1996). Welfare States in Transition. National Adaptations in Global Economics. London: Sage Publications.

Gallie, D. & Paugam, S., eds. (2000) Welfare Regimes and the Experience of Unemployment in Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press.