Waikato Journal of Education
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Keywords

Market competition
Schools
Social class
Educational research

How to Cite

Thrupp, M. (2016). School Quasi-Markets: Best Understood as a Class Strategy?. Waikato Journal of Education, 11(2). https://doi.org/10.15663/wje.v11i2.314

Abstract

To what extent it is best to see the market as a class strategy is a question which goes to the heart of research debates over school quasi-markets in New Zealand and elsewhere. Whereas most research suggests that school quasi-markets increase social and educational inequality, Stephen Gorard and colleagues have argued that school quasi-markets are relatively benign. From their perspective, class strategy research has generated a poorly supported and unhelpful 'crisis account'. This article summarises the range of scholarship and research evidence which supports the class strategy account and considers some problems in the perspective which has been taken by Gorard and colleagues. It is argued that the claims of Gorard and colleagues have not unravelled the arguments of class strategy proponents but in important respects are rendered problematic by those arguments.

https://doi.org/10.15663/wje.v11i2.314
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