ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the ideology of choice became a major challenge to educational administrators and managers committed to equality of access and opportunity. Recent educational reforms in a number of countries have been promoted on the basis that they will reduce centralized bureaucratic structures for the governance and provision of education and give people more individual choice. The chapter draws on recent work of Claus Offer to examine the macro-social structures within which the political ascendancy of neo-liberalism has occurred. Drawing on recent work by the French social theorist, Raymond Boudon, the chapter outlines his restricted theory of ideology and shows how it defines the limits of rational choice for socially situated individuals. For anyone familiar with the sociology of education of the past two decades, the recent onslaught of neo-liberal reform could be readily interpreted in terms of a "dominant ideology" thesis.
