ABSTRACT
In Chapter 1 the concept of the market place was defined as the physical locale in which most schools compete with one another and where the majority of children attend schools. It was consequently argued that the most obvious examples of market places were spatially defined at the LEA level, and included the schools from the state education sector and the parents and children living within these boundaries. However, the notion of the market place is only useful in providing a framework, both conceptually and geographically, to study, and understand what Waslander and Thrupp (1995) called “the ‘lived’ market”. To understand how the market operates it is necessary to examine the patterns and processes of competition occurring within the market place.
