Introduction

This chapter introduces the relative dearth of comparative studies of the Right and school educational policy as expressed by Michael Apple’s work early in the 21st century calling for such a comparative study.

This introduces the major point of enquiry in the book and the associated issues: private schooling, neoliberalism, a select response to globalization, especially in response to fee-paying overseas students as a lucrative export commodity comparable with tourism, decreased government control over school education, austerity in public school education, religious freedom, pandering to the Christian Right, and the Right and their association with the conservative media.