Private Schooling Research Articles

The Public Purposes of Private Education: a Civic Outcomes Meta-Analysis

Since Plato and Aristotle, political theorists have discussed the important role of education in forming democratic citizens. They disagree, however, over whether public or private schools are more effective at nurturing citizenship. We conduct a statistical meta-analysis to identify the average association between private schooling and measures of four central civic outcomes: political tolerance, political participation, civic knowledge and skills, and voluntarism and social capital. Our search identifies 13,301 initial target studies, ultimately yielding 531 effects from 57 qualified studies drawing from 40 different databases. Using Robust Variance Estimation, we determine that, on average, private schooling boosts any civic outcome by 0.055 standard deviations over public schooling. Religious private schooling, particularly, is strongly associated with positive civic outcomes. The evidence is especially strong that private schooling is correlated with higher levels of political tolerance and political knowledge and skills. We discuss heterogeneities, robustness checks, and implications.

Public and Private Schooling and Religious Socialization in Secondary School Students

Religion is the main component of the Pakistani Education system. It is important to understand the role of schooling in religious socialization of the students. The study aimed to compare the role of public and private schooling in religious socialization of secondary school students. Quantitative research design was followed to achieve the objectives. Researchers developed a 36 items questionnaire to collect data from secondary school students enrolled in public and private secondary schools. The questionnaire consisted of 6 factors including curriculum, teacher, co-curricular activities, school management, class fellows and parents-teacher interaction. The share of the participants was equal for male, female and rural, urban students. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze the data. The results showed that public and private secondary schools played an important role in promoting religious socialization among students. However, there was a significant difference in the perceptions of male and female secondary school students about their religious socialization at schools.

The effects of private schooling on pupil achievement: a global systemic analysis

ABSTRACT Globally, the private school share of enrollment increased from about 14 percent in 2000 to about 18 percent in 2019. We estimate the systemic effect of private enrollment share on learning outcomes. Estimates of the systemic effect of private school enrollment capture any competitive effects as well as any differences between public and private schools in raising student outcomes. We use new data from the World Bank on harmonised learning outcomes for mathematics, reading, and science to produce an unbalanced sample of 120 countries from 2000 to 2017. We find that, all else equal, on average, a one percentage point increase in private enrollment is associated with null to at most weakly positive effects on country-level learning outcomes. Countries that increased private school enrollment experience as much or slightly more learning than countries with no change in private school enrollment.

Does private tuition crowd out private schooling? Evidence from India

The paper argues that private tuition to some extent crowds out private schooling. Ceteris paribus it compensates for the teaching quality deficiency in government schools. As long as the cost of private tuition is below a threshold, a household may prefer to send its child to a government school. Using the National Sample Survey 75th Round, 2017–18 data on education in India, we estimate a negative significant impact of the share of private tuition expenditure in monthly per capita expenditure of a household on government school enrolment of its child, who is in the 13–18 age group. With a lower cost of private tuition, the child is sent to a government school and private tuition, rather than to a private school. The result remains robust after controlling for district-level school-related variables. The paper also uses a theoretical model for explaining its empirical finding. The theory argues the empirical results derived in the paper provide hard-to-find evidence in support of the widely held view that on average the unaided private schools in India impart better teaching quality compared to the government schools. The results also help us to understand the likely impact of policies like the crackdown on private tuition as has happened in China recently on school choice and quality of education in a country.

The rights and wrongs of private schooling

AbstractThis is a discussion, from a largely global but partly British perspective, about whether private schools should be freely permitted, discouraged or abolished. This, it is claimed, depends on the kind of private school one has in mind. The paper moves on to three arguments against British private schools, especially prestigious so‐called ‘public schools’: that they promote social exclusiveness, have created a ruling élite, and are unjust. This latter claim, which also has global relevance, is explored in some detail. The meritocratic conception of society which it presupposes is then also discussed and criticised. The final section of the paper is about future perspectives on private schooling across the world. It looks at proposed and actual measures to abolish or curtail them; educational proposals to limit the power of meritocracy, including reforms to the school examination system. It also discusses how likely it is that suggested reforms of any of these kinds will actually take place.

Inside mathematics learning inequality: an analysis of Young Lives Survey data, India

ABSTRACT This paper studies mathematics learning gaps within Indian children at two points in time. Dividing them into two groups, better performing and the rest, we investigate the causes of the difference in the average learning gap between them at those two points. We explore this question using the threefold Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition at these survey points (collected over a gap of four years). We find that when the children were younger the private schooling effect was the core contributor towards this learning gap. When these children got older, the effect vanished and the gap in average years of schooling, which has magnified during this time between these groups of children, contributes most to this learning gap.

Variegated Roles of and Relationships Between Private Tutoring and Schooling: Insights From the State of Maharashtra, India

Purpose The relationship between private tutoring (PT) and mainstream education is among the complex themes characterizing PT discourses in the literature. This study examined the complications of practices and processes in tutoring and schooling to elucidate different roles played by PT and its relationship with mainstream education. Design/Approach/Methods This study used qualitative data from a diverse set of 37 PT providers from the State of Maharashtra, India, to delineate their roles and explore their relationship with schooling in this context. Findings The classification of PT providers’ roles into complementary, accommodating, competing, and substitutive ones demonstrated a diverse range of relationships between PT and mainstream education. Further analysis showed that these relationships are dynamic in nature, and the boundaries between them are blurred. Originality/Value Research in the field of PT has been consistently pointing toward a perplexing mixture of positive and negative outcomes resulting from its relationship with mainstream education. This study transcended the positive vis-à-vis negative binary approach by contributing to the deeper understanding of PT relationships. Furthermore, it exemplified how future studies can disentangle the complexities of such relationships by deploying flexible, context-specific theoretical approaches.

The Impact of Private Schools, School Chains and PPPs in Developing Countries

Abstract The private school sector has expanded with almost no public intervention to educate half of primary school children in many urban centers in Africa and Asia. Simple comparisons of test scores would suggest that these private schools may provide better quality than public schools, but how much of this difference is due to selection effects is unclear. Much donor and policymaker attention has proceeded on the basis that private schools do perform better, and focused on models of public subsidy to expand access, and investment in networks or chains to encourage expansion. We review the evidence of the effects of private schools on learning, and how that effect translates to public-private partnerships (PPPs). We also study the effects of private school chains. We conduct a systematic review for eligible studies, with transparent search criteria. The search resulted in over 100 studies on low-cost private schools and PPPs, with a large majority being on low-cost private schools. Our meta-analysis shows moderately strong effects from private schooling, although the limited number of experimental studies find much smaller effects than quasi-experimental studies. This advantage, though, is not nearly enough to help most children reach important learning goals. Turning to policy goals, we find that the private school advantage has not translated to public private partnerships, which have shown limited value in improving quality. They can however represent a lower-cost means of increasing access to school. We also find that private school chains perform little better than individual private schools and have little scope for achieving meaningful scale.

The development of the education system in Qatar: assessing the intended and unintended impacts of privatization policy shifts

ABSTRACT Qatar is caught in the struggle between reformation of its educational system to create a dynamic, local workforce and prepare their citizens for the competitive global market for higher education and jobs, whilst preserving the country’s values, tradition and language. This paper examines the recent policy shifts, hitherto underexplored, analysing the intended and unexpected impacts that influenced subsequent policy reform. It begins with a background on neoliberal educational policies followed by a historical account of the education system, with a focus on post-2011 where the government introduced a voucher system to further privatization. Using quantitative longitudinal analyses based on tabulating detailed government educational reports from 2010 onwards, it aims to investigate the impact of these post-2011 policies on the number of schools, students, gender and demographic composition in the government and private schooling sector. The data illustrates how a simple, linear trend of privatization has not occurred and that significant demographic changes have begun to surface between government and private schools. If these trends continue at the same rate across the next decade, this will likely result in transformative social changes and divisions in relation to identity, language, gender, cultural values, socio-economic status, higher education choices and job opportunities.

The Fiscal and Welfare Effects of Policy Responses to the Covid-19 School Closures

Based on data on school visits from Safegraph and on school closures from Burbio, we document that during the Covid-19 crisis secondary schools were closed for in-person learning for longer periods than elementary schools, private schools experienced shorter closures than public schools, and schools in poorer US counties experienced shorter school closures. To quantify the long-run consequences of these school closures, we extend the structural life cycle model of private and public schooling investments by Fuchs-Schündeln et al. (Econ J 132:1647–1683, 2022) to include private school choice and feed into the model the school closure measures from our empirical analysis. Future earnings and welfare losses are largest for children that started public secondary schools at the onset of the Covid-19 crisis. Comparing children from the top to children from the bottom quartile of the income distribution, welfare losses are 0.5 percentage points larger for the poorer children if school closures were unrelated to income. Accounting for the longer school closures in richer counties reduces this gap by about 1/4. A policy intervention that extends schools by 6 weeks generates significant welfare gains for children and raises future tax revenues sufficient to pay for the cost of this schooling expansion.

What are the medium-term educational and labour market effects of private schooling?

ABSTRACT This article examines the impact of private school attendance on a range of outcomes during adulthood. Students are followed for seventeen years after they enter the sixth grade. The effect of private schooling on educational and labour market outcomes is estimated using propensity score matching. Private schooling has a positive effect on the likelihood of obtaining the baccalauréat and a higher education qualification, as well as obtaining a higher wage, for both girls and boys. A series of robustness tests confirms these results.

Equality of opportunity: Social determinants of university expectation amongst school attending adolescents in Bissau, Guinea-Bissau

This research explores determinants of higher education (HE) expectation in Bissau, Guinea-Bissau. Survey data includes 2,039 randomly selected responses from school-attending adolescents, from June 2017. HE expectations were indicated by 77% of girls and 68.7% of boys, privately schooled adolescents more frequently (78.5%) than publicly schooled peers (67.6%). Akaike Information Criterion was utilised, modelling HE expectation. Logistic regression indicated that female gender (OR=1.569), private schooling (OR=1.747), perceived comparative school performance (OR=1.776), increased studying time (OR=1.436), greater parent valuation of studies (OR=1.526), and parental warmth (OR=1.092) predicted HE expectation. Student-teacher conflict (OR=.546) and school disenfranchisement (OR=.755) negatively predicted HE expectations. Comparison with previous research in socioeconomically distinct higher income settings suggests consistently predictive and contextually influenced determinants of university expectation.

Orienting all students toward justice: Cultivating social responsibility in privileged schooling environments

What is the obligation of schools in fostering compassion for others and a commitment to the greater good? In a year-long qualitative study, this research explores how one Northeastern private schooling environment aimed to cultivate social responsibility in adolescents through an egalitarian, discussion-oriented pedagogy. Guided by Westheimer and Kahne’s three-tiered conceptualization of citizenship, we explore what can be learned from one school’s emphasis on student-led discussions and how this approach influenced students’ commitments to others. We ultimately argue that students developed a profound sense of obligation to one another (e.g. to other youth of privilege), but fell short of extending this commitment to others beyond their elite institution. These findings raise questions about the role of privileged schooling environments in fostering beyond-the-self, justice-oriented citizens for the benefit of our democracy and questions, too, about the pedagogies leveraged to achieve such goals.

Factors influencing the choice of private or public schools: Evidence from Georgia

The existence and development of public schools is influenced by a plethora of factors. Through the creation of education policies, any state education system is striving to accomplish specific goals. Both informal and formal private schooling is taking the lead in all cultures and societies. Unmistakably, the distinction between private and public schools is evident. However, given the different circumstances, choosing the best alternative for a child is regularly a fervently discussed topic among parents. There is no universal answer to the question whether private schools are actually better than or superior to the public schools. Our research aimed to describe the school choice process, it focuses on unveiling the factors and their interrelation while the parent choosing between two types of schools—private and public. First of all, the research aims to describe the parent’s perception of achieving success at school, what is the base for such belief, what the sentence—“School—base of future success” actually mean. How important is so called social index? The significance of the reputation and prestige of the educational institution during school choice process—as a guarantee for future success. The key questions for the research were as follows: (1) How interested the parents are to be actively involved in school choice process and spend certain period of time for that? (2) What factors are considered by the parents during school choice and what is the source they receive information from? (3) Does the family’s socioeconomic condition and the kids gender have influence on the process? It’s worth mentioning that, generally the research results fully coincide with the school choice theory arguments and the research findings conducted in the similar field. All these are described and presented in the first part of the article. The probabilities listed on the base of the current data, that the information source, the parent’s information level, the parents’ engagement as well as the family’s socioeconomic and demographic status play integral role in the school choice process appeared to be genuine. Apparently, the parents are much interested to provide perfect future for their kids, though socioeconomic conditions, environment, poor educational system limits their choice. Once our results compared to the existing literature and theory, one can see that our study conducted in Georgia follows the trends of the developed countries, known as the “Heyneman-Loxley effect.”

Is private schooling worth it? A study on the relationship between cost, quality, and student achievement in the private schools

PurposeThis study aimed to explore the relationships between school cost, school quality, and students' achievement in private schools in the UAE. Moreover, it also aimed to determine the extent to which socio-economic factors influence student outcomes.Design/methodology/approachA quantitative survey research design was employed by distributing a survey to students' parents in private schools (n = 400) who were selected randomly. The data were analyzed using SPSS software. Therefore, descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, linear regression, and multiple regression analysis were used to provide a comprehensive understanding of the relationships between the variables.FindingsA significant positive association was found between school costs and school quality. Furthermore, parents reported that their children's outcomes were significantly associated with the costs that they paid to schools. Additionally, school quality had a significant impact on students' achievement and explained approximately 38% of the variation in students' achievement. The results also demonstrated a significant association between school cost, parents' income, and students' outcomes.Originality/valueThis study explores the relationships between school cost, school quality, and students' achievements. Additionally, it examines the influence of socioeconomic factors on the relationships between the study variables. The context of this study is the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Revisiting educational advantage and social class: a Bourdieusian analysis of middle-class parents’ investment in private schooling and shadow education

This article provides a Bourdieusian analysis of middle-class parents’ investment in private schooling and shadow education (tutoring support) in India, thus contributes to the scholarship of class-based educational advantage. It unveils parents’ aspirations for their children’s education and investigates how these aspirations shape the demand for private education. Bringing into sharp focus the complexity of social privilege, this article discusses how middle-class parents’ articulation of their lack of valued cultural capital informs their decision to invest in private schools. However, parents’ views on their ineffective involvement in their children’s education produce a perceived home disadvantage, which parents compensate for by investing in tutoring services. The article argues that investing in private education – both in formal educational institutions and tutoring centres – is a case of ‘capital exchange’ (transfer of economic capital to secure cultural capital) exercised by privileged social groups to ‘purchase’ valuable educational resources, thus reproducing their social class position.

Is private-schooling problematic for transportation? Evidence from Southeast Queensland, Australia

School travel behaviors are associated with children’s health and well-being, traffic congestion, and sustainability. Australia has seen a steady rise in the number of car-passenger trips made by children to school, and a decline in walking-to-school. Australia differs from most nations in that it has one of the highest rates of private schooling in the world at around 34%, supported by high levels of Commonwealth Government funding. Little is known about the effects this has on travel behavior and whether it is a factor in Australia’s high rates of chauffeuring. This paper looks at journeys-toschool in South-East Queensland. Two research questions were posed: i) how do students in private and public schools travel to school, including mode shares and median trip-distances by mode?; and ii) is there any relationship between school type and mode choice, when controlling for key demographic and land use variables? Advanced geo-spatial matching allocated all trips made to schools in the 2017-2019 South East Queensland Travel Survey to either public or private schools. The resulting dataset included 2600 public school students’ trips to school and 1117 private school students’ trips to school. The public and private schools’ commuting travel behavior was then examined. Private motor vehicle is the most frequently chosen mode for travelling to school across the two groups (72.3% for public and 74.6% for private). The proportion of students walking/biking to school is 2.3 times greater for public than for private schools (16.8% versus 7.3%) even though those two groups share the same median trip distance value in active travel. For all other travel modes (automobile, public transportation and school bus), median trip distances are greater for private school students than private school students. Multinomial logistic regression modelling suggests that private school students are less likely to walk/cycle to school than public school students when controlling for key demographics and schools’ urban form characteristics. Private schools appear to disproportionately contribute to traffic congestion. Australia should consider amending its school policy frameworks to help address these concerns.

Private school choice among Muslim parents: the public–private school decision in Delhi, India

This article examines Muslim parents’ private school choice, their understanding of public–private schooling and how they navigate the choice between fee-free public schools and fee-charging private schools. This article draws on qualitative data from open-ended, semi-structured interviews with 38 parents from Muslim-majority areas in Delhi, India. The findings show that parents choose private schools for several reasons, such as their proximity, discipline, emphasis on Islamic teachings and values, safety and caring teachers. The analysis suggests that structural and social factors influence and construct parents’ choice of a particular school. The neighbourhood where they reside, their minority status, their socio-economic and demographic profile, and the type of schools that are available to them influence their decision making.

The Pandemic’s effect on demand for public schools, homeschooling, and private schools

The Covid-19 pandemic drastically disrupted the functioning of U.S. public schools, potentially changing the relative appeal of alternatives such as homeschooling and private schools. We study changes in families’ choices of school sector using longitudinal student-level administrative data from Michigan and nationally representative data from the Census Household Pulse Survey. Public school enrollment declined noticeably in fall 2020, with 3 percent of Michigan students and 10 percent of kindergartners using other options. Most of this came from homeschooling rates jumping substantially among families with children in elementary school. Consistent with heterogeneous parental preferences for instructional mode, homeschooling increased more where schools provided in-person instruction while private schooling increased more where instruction was remote. Kindergarten declines were highest among low income and Black families while declines in other grades were highest among higher income and White families, highlighting important heterogeneity by students’ existing attachment to public schools. Our results shed light on how families make schooling decisions and imply potential longer-run disruptions to public schools in the form of decreased enrollment and changed composition of the student body.

The Legitimacy of Private Schooling: Education Preferences in Nine European Contexts

ABSTRACT Motivated by empirical reality of differences in the scope and meaning of school choice and private schooling this article focuses on the public demand for increasing diversity of educational options In Europe and the division of public and private provision in it. We aim to test self-interest and ideology-driven logics of education policy preferences in different educational contexts. We operationalize this variety of contexts by the share of private education spending and between-school inequality. We show that, on average, more resourceful individuals are less pro-private-education and those that are ideologically right-leaning are more so. At the system level, private schooling feeds back positively, and this does not differ across educational or ideological divides. Educational inequality, at the same time, de-legitimizes the support for private schooling and its effect differs – higher educated and ideologically right-leaning turn to prefer more public schooling the higher the educational inequality. Thus, the more equal the educational provision, independent of public-private mix, the more entrenched pro-private school preferences will become.