Book reviewing: Middle-class school choice in urban spaces: the economics of public schooling and globalized education reform

Abstract

In recent decades, neoliberalism has transformed education systems worldwide through the privatization of education provision and the introduction of managerial logics into the public sector. Existing research puts emphasis on the global drivers behind neoliberal reforms and on the educational inequalities they generate. There is also research looking at the emerging educational movements trying to resist these reforms and promote a more equity driven approach to educational change. The book 'Middle-class school choice in urban spaces: The economics of public schooling and globalized education reform', authored by Emma Rowe, offers a novel angle to the enactment of neoliberal education reforms, as well as a more complex understanding of who advocates, reproduces and resists neoliberalism in education. The book explores the main drivers behind ongoing global transformations in education, but focuses, at a more micro level, on the arising tensions and paradoxes that prevail within public schooling, pro-public education activism, and families' identities in the context of such transformations. Specifically, on the basis of a five-year ethnographic research in the city of Melbourne, Rowe shows that neoliberalizing education reforms rearticulate and resignify public education, as well as the roles and relationships between the State, its citizens and the market. Theoretically, the book is located at the intersection between sociological literature on school choice, class theory, urban studies, and social movements.