Does Market Competition Encourage Strategic Action in the Private Education Sector?

Authors

  • Janice Aurini University of Waterloo
  • Linda Quirke Wilfrid Laurier University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.29173/cjs8865

Keywords:

Market hypothesis, market competition, sense-making, private education, private schools, tutoring, school choice

Abstract

This article examines whether market forces encourage private education entrepreneurs to strategically outsmart the competition in ways that improve the quality of their programs or service delivery. Based on interviews with eighty private education entrepreneurs, we find that market competition does not inform how they understand their role in the wider education sector or how they made sense of their actions. Instead entrepreneurs tie their program, hiring and customer service decisions to an ideological commitment to students and by defining themselves as educators. Drawing on the sense-making literature, we suggest that this worldview guides their actions more so than the principle of supply and demand. This paper opens the black box of private education organizations, and offers a nuanced addition to mounting research that challenges the connection between market competition and school performance.

Author Biographies

Janice Aurini, University of Waterloo

Janice Aurini is an Assistant Professor, University of Waterloo, Department of Sociology and Legal Studies.

Linda Quirke, Wilfrid Laurier University

Linda Quirke is an Assistant Professor, Wilfrid Laurier University, Department of Sociology.

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Published

2010-12-29

Issue

Section

Articles