Making Sense of School Choice : Politics, Policies, and Practice under Conditions of Cultural Diversity

Making Sense of School Choice explains why school choice fails to deliver on its promise to meet the needs of culturally diverse populations, even in one of the world's most marketized education systems. Windle offers fresh insights into the transnational processes involved in producing educational inequalities.

Why is choosing a school an urgent and self-defining task for some, and virtually meaningless for others? How is it possible that most parents contemplate only a single educational option in even the world''s most marketized education system? Making Sense of School Choice provides an original analysis of the global rise of neoliberal education reform, focussing on the curriculum as the site for tensions both in the mass expansion of secondary education, and in attempts to contain these through a return to socially restrictive schooling. The investigation provides fresh insights into the ways families from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds understand and engage with school choice, as well as efforts by schools to manage their market position. Windle casts new light on the transnational networks through which political and corporate players, the media, and elite educational institutions dictate terms to socially exposed sites - those schools catering to minority and disadvantaged student populations.