School Choice: Shaping Personal, Family and Social Imaginaries in an Era of Neoliberalism

The paper provides a critique of 'school choice' research, which is particularly relevant for Australia where 'choice' of school is strongly advocated by government. The promotion of choice, along with policies of market competition in education, the commodification of schooling, and rigid accountability policies that require the publication of national, standardised test result, illustrates the extent to which neoliberal education policies have been adopted in Australia. The paper argues that more holistic research on school choice needs be centred on processes of choice-making within the powerful political context of neoliberalism and in relation to the aspirations and imagined futures of students, parents, teachers, schools and communities. Such research must also acknowledge and understand that, as key elements of the neoliberal world view (such as competition, choice and high stakes accountability) are normalised in the day-to-day practices of schooling, the norms and values that characterise not only our education system, but also our society and democracy, are also affected.