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Politics, Markets, and the Organization of Schools

Item

Title

Politics, Markets, and the Organization of Schools

Abstract/Description

We offer a comparative analysis of public and private schools, presenting data from a new national study—the Administrator and Teacher Survey—that expands on the pathbreaking High School and Beyond survey. We find that public and private schools are distinctively different in environment and organization. Most importantly, private schools are more likely to possess the characteristics widely believed to produce effectiveness. We argue throughout that the differences across the sectors are anchored in the logic of politics and markets. This argument derives from our belief that environmental context has pervasive consequences for the organization and operation of all schools and specifically that the key differences between public and private environments—and thus between public and private schools—derive from their characteristic methods of social control: the public schools are subordinates in a hierarchic system of democratic politics, whereas private schools are largely autonomous actors “controlled” by the market.

Author/creator

Date

Volume

82

Issue

4

Pages

1065-1087

Resource type

Research/Scholarly Media

Resource status/form

Published Text

Scholarship genre

Theoretical

Open access/full-text available

Yes

Peer reviewed

Yes

ISSN

0003-0554, 1537-5943

Citation

Chubb, J. E., & Moe, T. M. (1988). Politics, Markets, and the Organization of Schools. American Political Science Review, 82(4), 1065–1087. https://doi.org/10.2307/1961750

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