Public or private education? Parents’ choices between actual and potential pluralism

Abstract

School autonomy, educational choices, quality and equity are the watchwords that have guided educational systems changes in many European Countries over the last years towards a pluralistic horizon. Focusing on Italian education system, the article analyzes the mechanisms leading parents to choose children’ education paths and investigates the main factors behind the choice between public and private school, exploring how such behavior merely depends on deterministic socioeconomic segmentation or on other cultural variables, such as prestige, ideology, religion, or the status appeal of an education offer. Exploring results of a nationwide Italian PRIN study (consisting in a survey on parents with children at the end of primary and low secondary school and at the beginning of upper secondary schools), the article underlines, besides the influence of parents’ education level and socioeconomic status, the importance of other latent variables influencing parents’ choice, like family involvement in school system and parents’ motivation.

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Pandolfini V. (2013) "Public or private education? Parents’ choices between actual and potential pluralism " Italian Journal of Sociology of Education, 5(2), 189-217. DOI: 10.14658/PUPJ-IJSE-2013-2-8  
Year of Publication
2013
Journal
Italian Journal of Sociology of Education
Volume
5
Issue Number
2
Start Page
189
Last Page
217
Date Published
06/2013
ISSN Number
2035-4983
Serial Article Number
8
DOI
10.14658/PUPJ-IJSE-2013-2-8
Issue
Section
Articles