ERIC Number: EJ1130776
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2017
Pages: 15
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0305-7925
EISSN: N/A
Parental Choice without Parents: Families, Education and Class in a South African Township
Hunter, Mark
Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, v47 n1 p2-16 2017
From the 1980s and 1990s, governments around the world began to champion "parental choice" over schooling. Much of the existing scholarship has been based on examples taken from the global North. In such settings, where nuclear families are common, a major theme has been the privileged educational strategies and outcomes of middle-class families. Yet this South African study gives attention to gender and family dynamics in helping to explain and understand the large number of school children travelling to attend historically better-funded schools. It argues that in a setting where the nuclear family accounts for a minority of households, it is necessary to distinguish between the "financing" of a child's education and the social "organization of schooling," including the caring of the child. It contributes to two literatures. First, to Western-centred educational choice literature that has tended to overemphasise nuclear families; second, to South African literature, which is yet to adequately bring into the same analytical frame the marketisation of education and gendered family dynamics.
Descriptors: Foreign Countries, School Choice, Social Class, Social Change, Social Discrimination, Statistical Analysis, Qualitative Research, Community Surveys, Interviews, Family Income, Family Characteristics, Parent Role, Family Role, Parent Aspiration, Educational Finance, School Administration, Neighborhoods
Taylor & Francis. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 530 Walnut Street Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Tel: 215-625-8900; Fax: 215-207-0050; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Elementary Secondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: South Africa
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A