ABSTRACT
While concern for ‘publicness’ can take many forms, such as media reports of educational crises or concerns regarding patient waiting times in hospitals, public institutions are still widely considered to be important foundations of democratic societies. The public good and the demos have been trumped by private positional good, as demonstrated by increased competition between schools for particular clientele, and the ways that families now buy-in to schooling markets literally and optimistically. This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book approaches issues of school privatisation in different contexts, and shed light on the contours of this reorganisation and the implications this has for public education systems. It collectively argues for a new consideration of how the readers understand the forces changing the publicness of schooling, whether the readers should move beyond the public/private distinction in regards to schooling.
