School educational project as a criterion of school choice

Discourses and practices in the city of Barcelona

Bibliographic Data

ID11488247
AuthorsRosângela Benito (0000-0003-4579-3238), Ricard Benito (Universitat Autonòma de Barcelona), Miquel Àngel Alegre (corresponding author), Isaac Gonzàlez (Universitat Oberta de Catalunya)
Year2014
Volume29
Issue3
Pages397-420
Publication date2014-05-04
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Education Policy (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0268-0939 • E-ISSN: 1464-5106
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/02680939.2013.844858
OpenAlexW2038563805
LanguageEN
Citations received7
References cited22

In its advancement towards an education quasi-market, Catalonia has recently been driving the development of school educational projects in all schools (both public and private) as a tool to facilitate school autonomy and family choices. A school educational project is a formal document in which schools identify their pedagogical goals, missions and orientations, their academic resources and organisational structures. Through the analysis of 60 in-depth interviews with parents of children at the age of commencing universal pre-primary education (three years old) and data collected from surveys completed by a representative sample made up of 3245 families, this article explores the impact of this policy on discourses and practices of school choice amongst families in the city of Barcelona. On the one hand, we observe that interest in educational projects has penetrated the discourses of the most educated parents, even though, at the same time, we detect a generalised lack of knowledge of the content of such projects. On the other hand, we note that the social composition of schools is still a prominent factor in choice practices. Such findings question the ideal of the autonomous and rational citizen-consumer that underlies the policy of establishing educational projects

Autonomy · Ideal (ethics · Pedagogy · Political science · Public relations · Sample (material · School choice · Sociology · Diverse Education Studies and Reforms · Parental Involvement in Education · School Choice and Performance

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