School Market Research Articles

Low-fee private schools, the state, and globalization: A market analysis within the political sociology of education and development

This study investigates the emergence and supply-demand dynamics of a market for low-fee private schools (LFPS) at the level of early childhood care and education (ECCE) in a slum of Lusaka, Zambia. Based on data collection over 1.5 years, the study reveals that, despite a government policy to support ECCE, over 90% of ECCE centers are private; that school operators tend to be former teachers, businessmen/women, and religious leaders; and that LFPSs charge, on average, 2.5 times as much as government ECCE centers for tuition, not including additional indirect costs. The paper discusses how teachers in LFPSs are caught in the middle, making less than the average income earned by others in the surrounding slum, and are unable to afford LFPS fees themselves. Importantly, the paper highlights that lower income quintiles spend a greater percentage of their income on ECCE, and that a majority of families in the study must make tradeoffs between ECCE, food, housing, and other basic expenditures in order to afford private ECCE, which is a necessity given the inadequate supply of government ECCE centers. In addition to addressing school strategies for keeping costs down, this study reports on parental decision-making when it comes to school selection. Finally, beyond a straight market analysis of LFPSs at the ECCE level in Zambia, this article also comments on how this market fits into the dialectical nature of local and global contexts. That is, it draws attention to the workings of the Zambian state and its precarious position in the global capitalist economy.

Achieving Scaled and Sustained Use of Client-Based Projects in Business School Marketing Education: A Proposed Suprastructure

Business scholars agree that well-constructed experiential learning and specifically client-based projects (CBPs) provide an opportunity for students to apply concepts they learn to solve particular problems. As an additional outcome, they provide value for multiple stakeholders including the client, business community, university, and the instructor. However, CBPs can be inherently complex and demanding on instructors, impeding adoption and sustained use. As critical participatory action researchers, we worked collaboratively with faculty within our marketing department to examine and address the challenges of scaling capacity to support, effectively replicate, and grow use of CBPs in our business school marketing courses and subsequently other department curriculum. This article describes a unified view of project management and business development processes as a framework for effective scaled use of CBPs and outlines a suprastructure. It additionally offers “how to” guidance that can support use of a suprastructure as a means of achieving economies of scale, including description of roles and relationships.

Marketising private tuition: Representations of tutors’ competence, entrepreneurial opportunities and service legitimation in home tutoring business manuals

Education researchers have explored the marketisation of schools resulting from neoliberal education policy, but little attention has been paid to supplementary education markets. Supplementary education services, such as private tuition, are delivered outside of school but designed to improve performance within it. A small body of research demonstrates that the private tuition market in the UK and the USA is burgeoning, and that students’ access to this service is differentiated by region, class and ethnicity. These emerging demand‐side analyses are vital, but they cannot tell us about the educational entrepreneurship that shapes the supply of private tutoring services. This article addresses this lacuna through a discourse analysis of manuals, published as part of the developing tutoring support industry, that are designed to guide would‐be entrepreneurs through the establishment of a private tuition business. This analysis excavates manuals’ treatment of: tutors’ motivation to work in the sector and their competence to do so; strategies to be employed in the marketisation of tuition services; and the need to build trust to ensure business legitimation in an unregulated industry. In conclusion, the article sets a new agenda for research into fast‐developing supplementary education markets that explores: (i) the dynamics of this expanding educational workforce of private tutors; (ii) the ways marketisation addresses and augments parental anxiety about children's education; and (iii) the need for safeguarding and quality control in private tuition.

Implementasi Pelayanan Prima Sebagai Upaya Meningkatkan Marketing Sekolah

<p><em>Education is a public service institution that aims to educate the nation. In achieving this goal, SDIT Taqiyya Rosyida is committed to dedicate excellent services to achieve the quality of education. The purpose of this research is to know how to implement excellent services as an effort to improve the marketing of schools in SDIT Taqiyya Rosyida. This research uses qualitative methods of descriptive. Data is collected through observation, interviews, and documentation. Research subjects are principals and research informers include teachers, students, employees, and parents. The results of this research are the implementation of excellent services in the form of: 1) Training of Excellence Services, 2) creating friendly communication, 3) animate a family atmosphere, 4) provide quality facilities, where the implementation of excellent services was able to make SDIT Taqiyya Rosyida reached the acceptance of 112 students divided into 4 study groups, in the fifth year.</em></p>

Effective schools 10 years on: factors and processes enabling the sustainability of school effectiveness

ABSTRACTA great deal of knowledge has been accumulated on how educational effectiveness and improvement come to be. However, the issue of how these processes behave once they have been achieved has remained relatively unexplored. In this paper, we report on the findings of a multiple case study that delved into the factors and processes explaining different levels of sustainability of educational effectiveness for schools previously identified and studied as highly effective and located in low-income areas. We show that effectiveness is a fragile attainment that is affected by a variety of external and internal processes. Transformations in the local context (demographic changes and the dynamics of the school market), and educational policies and programs are key external factors. In the internal realm, the role of school administrators, principals, and leadership teams, the organization of pedagogical work, and the school culture modulate the sustainability of educational effectiveness in the long term.

Organizing a Competitive Logic in the Swedish School Market

A common assumption in organizational literature is that the “rules” by which organizations compete in a market emerge from processes of mutual adjustment among competitors to the constraints posed by market structures and institutions. While this may often be the case, we point the analytical gaze to the arguably prevalent but understudied case where the rules for competing are decided, i.e. result from an attempt at organizing by an organizer, rather than by mutual adjustment among competitors. We explore the formation and change of a competitive logic among Swedish upper secondary schools, using archival and interview data from two municipalities. We find how a broad-sweeping reform initially failed to shape a competitive logic, i.e. schools did not think they were competing. Over time, however, the idea of competing for students took hold, resulting in the organization of two very different competitive logics. Our findings speak to literatures that deal with institutional, geographical, and structural perspectives on competition, adding the notion of organizers as central actors in processes where competition forms and changes.

Hierarchies of Access in Schooling: An Exploration of Parental School Choice in Haryana

The parental schooling choice in India has tilted in favour of private schools in a big way and preference for English medium has been highlighted as the main driving force behind this trend. This article analyses the school choice where both private as well as government schools offer education in English and Hindi medium. Based on the primary field survey and secondary data analysis, the article argues that the introduction of English medium in government schools has impacted the village school market significantly as it has led to the closure of three out of four private schools. However, we found that the availability of English medium school is not the sole determinant of school choice. A sharp difference in the profile of students enrolled in the government-run Hindi and English medium schools suggest that caste, gender and economic status also play a significant role in school choice.

Digital Food and Beverage Marketing Environments in a National Sample of Middle Schools: Implications for Policy and Practice.

One promising approach to influence nutrition behavior is to limit food and beverage marketing to children. Children are a lucrative market and schools may be an effective setting in which to intervene. Studies have shown that marketing in schools is prevalent but little is known about digital marketing (DM) to students in the school setting. We used an online survey to assess DM environments in a national sample of middle schools. Our findings demonstrate that students are exposed to marketing through school devices. Gaps in school district, school and classroom policy and practice lead to student exposure to food and beverage marketing. Our data point to actionable policy and practice change at the school district, individual school, and classroom levels that could help limit unwanted and harmful food and beverage marketing to youth.

Could do better! A high school market survey of fish labelling in Sydney, Australia, using DNA barcodes.

BackgroundProcessed seafood products are not readily identifiable based on physical characteristics, which leaves the industry vulnerable to high levels of product mislabelling (globally estimated at 5–30% mislabelled). This is both a food safety issue and a consumer protection issue as cheaper species could be substituted for more expensive species. DNA barcoding is proving to be a valuable tool for authentication of fish products. We worked with high school students to perform a market survey and subsequent species assessment via DNA barcoding to investigate the accuracy of fish product names used by retailers in Sydney, Australia.MethodsSixty-eight fish samples, sold under 50 different common names, were purchased anonymously from two retailers in Sydney. Each product name was recorded and reconciled with the Australian Fish Names Standard (AFNS). Samples were DNA barcoded and resulting sequences were deposited in the online Barcode of Life Data system using the simplified Student Data Portal interface.ResultsForty percent of the fish names did not comply with the AFNS, however, half of these were either spelling errors or vendors supplied more information than the standard requires. The other half of the non-compliant samples were given common names not listed on the AFNS. Despite this lack of standardization, DNA barcode data confirmed the retailers’ identifications for 93% of samples and 90% of species sampled.DiscussionThe level of mislabelling we report for Sydney retailers (7% of samples or 10% of species) compares favorably with the global rates of 5–30%, but unfavorably with the only previous DNA barcode fish authentication study for Australia, which found no confirmed mislabelling in Hobart. Our study sampled mostly Australian produce, only two retailers and no restaurants. Results of our limited sample suggest that although many Sydney fish retailers attempt to implement the voluntary fish name standards, the standards are inadequate. As Australia imports 75% of its seafood, and in other countries restaurants generally show lower levels of compliance than retailers, broader surveys are needed before generalizing these results. DNA barcoding is a powerful yet simple method supported by accessible online analytical tools. Incorporation of fish barcoding into high school science classes provided students with valuable firsthand experience in scientific research and drew together different strands of the NSW curriculum relating to genetics and sustainability. Given the techniques, equipment, and reagents are now readily accessible, we expect to see greater uptake of DNA barcoding technology by high schools, citizen scientists and consumer groups in Australia in future. However, there remains much scope for further development of DNA barcode diagnostics (both data and analytical methods) for commercial fish species.

Marketing the School? How Local Context Shapes School Marketing Practices

ABSTRACTThis paper reports the findings of a study that analyzed the marketing activities of a number of vocational schools in a municipality where these organizations were allowed to compete for students. The research employed a qualitative, exploratory and descriptive design. The data was collected through interviews with school leaders, regional education authorities and civil society stakeholders, as well as an analysis of school promotional and informational materials. The study shows that marketing played a minor role in school leaders’ management activities and that these leaders addressed marketing in a mostly unsystematic, informal and intuitive way. We explain this in terms of the specific nature of the local context in which the schools operated, namely, the levels of structural and behavioral competition in the vocational school system and the way the market is regulated by public authorities.

The emergence of the marketing professional in schools

The marketisation of schools has emerged as a defining feature of the education landscape. While the role of principals and lead teachers in carrying out marketing work was investigated in the late 1990s, there has been scant evidence of how the people and practices of marketing in schools have evolved into the twenty-first century. Expanding on existing literature on educational marketing practices in schools, and through in-depth interviews with a unique sample of school marketers, this study explores the emergence of the school marketing professional. The interviews reveal the diverse backgrounds and experiences of these individuals, the transfer of their business skills into schools and the tensions in professional boundaries with educators who traditionally performed school marketing activities. Ultimately, the study furthers insights into the co-existence of educational and managerial agendas in the schools market.

The third sector and innovation: competitive strategies, incentives, and impediments to change

PurposeMuch justification for third sector involvement in education advances from the notion that attributes from business and non-profit fields could benefit state-run public schools. The purpose of this paper is to explore this issue by examining theoretical underpinnings and expectations for third sector participation in public education systems, particularly with respect to educational innovations and improvements, and the structural opportunities, incentives, and impediments for such innovation.Design/methodology/approachThe question is how third sector participation shapes the rate, nature, and types of innovations in education as schools interact in response to competitive pressures. This conceptual analysis of the third sector examines the political-economic features and structures of the sector in fostering innovation, with reference to the US sector that was specifically positioned to enhance the innovative capacity of publicly funded education.FindingsThe analysis indicates that educational innovations are not necessarily more prevalent in or because of the third sector, and that there are obstacles to their creation and diffusion. Moreover, schools often respond to competitive incentives in ways unanticipated by policymakers, such as school marketing rather than instructional improvement, sometimes in ways detrimental to goals set out for public education, such as social sorting. In fact, instead of the third sector simply developing or incentivizing innovations, there is evidence that this sector has adopted innovations developed in the state sector.Originality/valueThe analysis suggests that a third sector based more on a professional, as opposed to a competitive, model may better facilitate the development of innovative capacity in education.

Synthesizing the economist’s and the psychologist’s approaches to litter control for sustainable waste management

Littering has been a subject of inquiry by environmental economists, as well as social and environmental psychologists, each using a different theoretical and analytical toolkit. While economists see littering as an externality problem or a market failure, psychologists see it as a social behavior problem. Regardless of the discipline, both theories have a common goal: What factors affect littering behavior and how can it be curtailed? This paper, therefore, adopts theory-triangulation approach to review theories concerning littering. It concisely reviews the economist’s and the psychologist’s approaches to littering and their respective solutions. The finding from this review is that the psychological approaches to litter control are narrower in coverage than the economic approaches in that the former are applicable to smaller environmental settings or areas, such as school premises, office places, factories, and market places, as opposed to such lager settings as cities, states or the country at large to which economic instruments are usually applied. Despite the plethora of research extolling the virtues of economic approaches to litter control, their real-world application has not caught on. One of the factors responsible for this is the implementation costs and difficulty involved. The economic instruments are costlier than the psychological instruments, because the former cover a larger setting and entail a lot of bureaucracies. To better understand littering and find appropriate solutions to it, studies on littering should consider looking at littering holistically from this interdisciplinary perspective. Both the economist’s and the psychologist’s approaches to litter control should be synthesized for sustainable waste management. However, policymakers need to consider the available financial resources and the multifarious views of litter in policies relating to litter. An option for policymakers is to minimize those costs associated with implementing economic instruments.

Maternal nutritional supplement delivery in developing countries: a scoping review

BackgroundMaternal under-nutrition in low-income countries has been inextricably linked to negative child outcomes. Developing countries lack policies for monitoring and evaluating maternal nutritional programs, which has led to a gap in data collection regarding the effectiveness of prenatal supplement delivery methods. The objective of this scoping review is to examine and determine the delivery methods of maternal nutritional supplements in developing countries.MethodsScoping review of maternal supplement programs delivery methods in low-income countries including Bangladesh, Ethiopia, India, Kenya, and Nepal are examined. A systematic search was performed in six databases; CINAHL (Cumulative Index to Nursing & Allied Health), MEDLINE, Web of Science, PubMed, Scopus, and FSTA (Food Science and Technology s).ResultsA systematic search performed in six databases yielded a total of 510 un-duplicated results; (CINAHL: 42, Medline: 112, Web of Science: 77, PubMed: 46, Scopus: 179, FSTA: 38, and additional records: 16). Results after duplicates were removed (n = 308), these results were screened, and relevant studies based on the research question identified and selected (n = 12). The 12 full-text articles were assessed for eligibility and 8 of these studies were excluded for not meeting the scoping review criteria. Data was extracted and charted from the four remaining studies. The findings were collated and summarized.Three modes of delivery were identified: 1. Volunteer maternal nutrition educator delivered supplements to the pregnant woman’s home; 2. The pregnant woman received a maternal supplements from school, health/local center, or village market; and 3. The pregnant woman received a ration card for subsidized food.ConclusionsBarriers in delivering maternal supplements included lack of trained professional volunteers, limited support and guidance provided to volunteers, and a high cost of equipment, supplies, and buildings. Pregnant women in developing countries faced many obstacles in accessing maternal supplement programs including poverty, rural isolation, limited transportation, low social status, traditional, cultural, and religious practices. Strategies required to improve program delivery involved an earlier invitation to prenatal supplements, increase in partnerships, a focus on adolescent girls’ health, paid maternal leave, increase in training and incentives for volunteers, and self-help groups focused on prenatal education and counseling services.

Food and beverage marketing in primary and secondary schools in Canada

BackgroundUnhealthy food marketing is considered a contributor to childhood obesity. In Canada, food marketing in schools is mostly self-regulated by industry though it is sometimes restricted through provincial school policies. The purpose of this study was to document the type of food marketing activities occurring in Canadian schools and examine differences by school characteristics.MethodsAn online survey was sent to public primary and secondary schools from 27 school boards in Ontario, British Columbia, and Nova Scotia and was completed by 154 Principals in spring 2016. This survey queried the type of food marketing occurring in schools including advertisements, food product displays, fundraising, exclusive marketing agreements, and incentive programs, among others. The occurrence of food marketing was described using frequencies, medians, and ranges. Chi-square and Fisher Exact tests were conducted to assess school-level differences in the frequency of marketing activities by school type (primary versus secondary), province (Ontario versus British Columbia), and the socio-economic status of most students (low versus middle/high income). The significance level was set at α < 0.05 for all tests.ResultsOverall, 84% of schools reported at least one type of food marketing and the median number of distinct types of marketing per school was 1 (range 0–6). The most frequently reported forms of marketing were the sale of branded food, particularly chocolate, pizza, and other fast food, for fundraising (64% of schools); food advertisements on school property (26%), and participation in incentive programs (18%). Primary schools (n = 108) were more likely to report participating in incentive programs (25%) and selling branded food items (72%) compared to secondary schools (n = 46; 2 and 43% respectively; p < 0.01). Conversely, secondary schools were more likely to report food advertising on school property (56%), exclusive marketing arrangements with food companies (43%), and food product displays (19%) than primary schools (13, 5 and 2%, respectively; p < 0.01).ConclusionThe presence of food marketing in most participating schools suggests that the current patchwork of policies that restrict food marketing in Canadian schools is inadequate. Comprehensive restrictions should be mandated by government in both primary and secondary schools to protect children and youth from this marketing.

School Market in Quebec and the Reproduction of Social Inequalities in Higher Education

The purpose of this article is to show that the stratification of the Quebec high school market contributes to the reproduction of social inequalities in higher education. The results obtained from a sample (N = 2,677) of a cohort of students born in 1984 and observed up to the age of 22 show that the influence of social origin operates in large part via mediation of the type of institution attended. Students enrolled in private or public institutions offering enriched programs (in mathematics, science or languages) are significantly more likely to access college and university education than their peers who attended a public institution offering only regular programs. Additional analyses reveal that the probability of attending a private or public institution offering enriched programs is strongly correlated with the social origin of the student. The influence of the education market itself operates through differences in performance and educational aspirations that characterize students in three types of establishments.

Challenging the market logic of school choice: A spatial analysis of charter school expansion in Chicago

ABSTRACT Corporate education reformers take for granted that market competition in the public schools system will improve education conditions. We conducted a spatial analysis of Chicago Public Schools, examining the spatial features of charter school expansion in relation to under-18 population decline, school utilization, and school closure locations. Our findings indicate that 69% of new charter schools were opened in areas with significantly declining under-18 population and approximately 80% of charter schools were opened within walking distance of closed school locations. Our findings show, contrary to corporate education reform logic, that a competitive charter school market created spatial and financial inefficiencies resulting in school closures and systemwide budgetary cuts primarily impacting distressed neighborhoods. We explain the overproduction of charter schools through the lens of the firm-like behavior of charter school operators driven by a self-interested growth mandate that can undermine the stability of the public schools system as a whole.

Foundations of Value Disorientation in Africa: Example of the Nigerian Education System

Human personality is a product of cultural ideologies transmitted via institutions of socialisation – family, schools, religion, and the mass media. The school system is responsible for secondary socialisation of citizens after the family. The major obligation is the purposeful creation and strengthening of personality, to give the citizens proper formation so that they can integrate socially and take up responsibilities in the various facts of the society. The success or otherwise of this obligation depends on the values that dominate the learning environment of the citizens. Using the tenets of Skinner’s learning theory of personality, this study seeks to establish a relationship between the prevalent environment of learning and the high rate of value disorientation in Nigeria. The paper combines ethnographic observation and conceptual review methods. Some of the factors of value disorientation identified include, discordant religious doctrines in schools, marketing of schools with examination fraud, and environment of injustice and human rights abuse. The study recommends that government should separate religious education from formal education so that Nigerian schools will no longer be used as avenues of inculcating discordant religious beliefs and doctrines; and that the national and state houses of assembly should make legislations that will empower students to demand for justice when their rights are violated.

Contemplating the Standard-Market Dichotomy: School Reforms, Markets, and Politics

Contemplating the Standard-Market Dichotomy: School Reforms, Markets, and Politics

Qualitative impact evaluation of a social marketing campaign for conservation.

Social marketing campaigns use marketing techniques to influence human behavior for the greater social good. In the conservation sector, social marketing campaigns have been used to influence behavior for the benefit of biodiversity as well as society. However, there are few evaluations of their effectiveness. We devised an approach for evaluating the influences of social marketing campaigns on human behavior and conservation outcomes. We used general elimination methodology, a theory-driven qualitative evaluation method, to assess the long-term impacts of a 1998 Rare Pride campaign on the island of Bonaire that was designed to increase the population of the Lora (Amazona barbadensis), a threatened parrot. We interviewed stakeholder groups to determine their perceptions of the drivers of the changes in the Lora population over time. We used these data to develop an overall theory of change to explain changes in the Lora population by looking at the overlap in hypotheses within and between stakeholder groups. We then triangulated that theory of change with evidence from government reports, peer-reviewed literature, and newspapers. The increase in the Lora population was largely attributed to a decrease in illegal poaching of Loras and an associated decrease in local demand for pet Loras. Decreases in poaching and demand were likely driven by a combination of law enforcement, social marketing (including the Rare campaign), and environmental education in schools. General elimination methodology helped show how multiple interventions influenced a conservation outcome over time. There is a need for evidence-based evaluations of social marketing interventions to ensure that limited resources are spent wisely.