School choice is most often viewed through the lens of provision: most of the debate on the issue searches for desirable ways to offer vouchers, scholarships or other tools that provides choice as a way to achieve equality and/or freedom. This paper focuses on the consumer side of school choice, and utilises behavioural economics as well as ethnographic and network studies to consider ways to structure choice which respond to actual cognitive and social processes of choice. These empirical studies give (...) scholars and policy-makers who grapple with school choice a perspective that should affect the principled design of these programs as well as their execution. The paper considers the ways in which actual choice processes should affect current visions of school choice. It concludes with recommendations concerning the design of choice sets and the accessibility of information regarding choice, which together can assist school choice policies in better fulfilling their promise of equality and freedom. (shrink)

School choice advocacy is dominated by perspectives that reflect a tendency to regard public schooling as a private service commodity. In recent years, numerous works of Anglo-American political philosophy, sociology and legal theory have attempted to restore a conception of public schooling as an institution that cultivates civic virtue. Counterintuitively, these works also endorse prudently regulated school choice as a means of honouring public purposes while accommodating pluralism within liberal democracies. Four such recent works help outline the salient dimensions of (...) this perspective and the disputes within it. While not a political panacea, this perspective ought to inform public deliberations about school choice and public education generally in Anglophone nations. (shrink)

Liberal Pluralism: The Implications of Value Pluralism for Political Theory and Practice William A. Galston, 2002, New York, Cambridge University Press. Pp. 150. Hbk $55.00Visions of Schooling: Conscience, Community, and Common Education Rosemary Salomone, 2000, New Haven CT, Yale University Press. Pp. 352. Pbk £13.95Diversity and Distrust: Civic Education in a Multicultural Democracy Stephen Macedo, 2003, Cambridge MA, Harvard University Press. Pp. 368. Pbk £16.95Bridging Liberalism and Multiculturalism in American Education Rob Reich, 2002, Chicago, University of Chicago Press. Pp. 272. (...) Hbk £42.00School choice advocacy is dominated by perspectives that reflect a tendency to regard public schooling as a private service commodity. In recent years, numerous works of Anglo-American political philosophy, sociology and legal theory have attempted to restore a conception of public schooling as an institution that cultivates civic virtue. Counterintuitively, these works also endorse prudently regulated school choice as a means of honouring public purposes while accommodating pluralism within liberal democracies. Four such recent works help outline the salient dimensions of this perspective and the disputes within it. While not a political panacea, this perspective ought to inform public deliberations about school choice and public education generally in Anglophone nations. (shrink)