1st Edition
School Choice in Europe
In this book, leading experts present rigorous, readable studies of education policies and school markets in 11 European countries from Ireland to Ukraine, offering lessons for researchers, policymakers and educators. No other book fills this niche.
Americans debating whether parents’ choosing their children’s schools will improve education would be wise to learn from a century of experience in Europe, where most governments have long subsidized private schools, including religious schools. Likewise, Europeans debating this issue may learn that there is a varied landscape of state/private school arrangements around Europe and that the one specific to their country may be enriched by these experiences. This volume brings together leading European researchers who present rigorous, readable studies exploring how education markets work in 11 European countries from Ireland to Ukraine. The chapters cover a range of topics including empirical examinations of the reasons Irish parents choose single sex education, how a Ukrainian school improvised to serve students and parents in a war zone, how school choice defused culture wars in countries as varied as the Netherlands and Estonia, how the German left and right embraced increased parental agency for different reasons, the effectiveness of central regulations of autonomous British schools, how changing subsidy levels affect demand for private schooling in Italy and Portugal, the motivations of Hungarian parents choosing schools, and the impacts of social class on schooling choices and policies in Sweden, Germany, and Spain.
This volume will be a key resource for academics, researchers, and advanced students of education, education policy and leadership, educational research, economics, and sociology. The chapters included in this book were originally published in the Journal of School Choice
Editors’ Note
Robert Maranto, Tommaso Agasisti, and Rodrigo Queiroz e Melo
Introduction: School Choice in Europe
Tommaso Agasisti, Rodrigo Queiroz e Melo, and Robert Maranto
1. Learning from school choice in Europe
Charles L. Glenn
2. School choice (and diversity) in the UK since 1944: Continuity, change, divergence and school selectivity
Anne West
3. How Useful are Ofsted inspection judgments for informing secondary school choice?
Christian Bokhove, John Jerrim, and Sam Sims
4. Estimating the impact on educational demand of divesting in a private school voucher policy: a study of an Italian region
M. Cannistrà, T. Agasisti, and F. Olivanti
5. The termination of publicly funded private school contracts: Supply and demand side effects
Joao Firmino, Andre Guilherme, Afonso Câmara Leme, and Luis Catela Nunes
6. Why Irish parents choose single sex schools
José J. García Clavel and Darragh Flannery
7. Parental involvement and school choice in Hungarian primary schools
Gabriella Pusztai, Péter Róbert and Hajnalka Fenyas
8. Inclusive or divisive choices? Education policy preferences in the bilingual education system of Estonia
Triin Lauri and Kaire Põder
9. Distance does matter, but time is critical: the role of spatial and institutional features in choosing HEI
Wojciech Szymczak, and Tomasz Gajderowicz
10. Navigating educational and urban landscapes: middle-class school choice strategies in local education markets
Xavier Bonal, Sheila Gonzalez, Alejandro Montez, and Marcel Pagès
11. Factors influencing parents’ choice of educational institution in challenging war conditions: A case study of a private Ukrainian school
Hanna Usova
12. The profit motive in the classroom---friend or foe?
Niklas Elert and Magnus Henrekson
13. Politics of school choice in Germany: the abolition of the binding recommendation in Baden-Wuerttemberg and Saxony
Line Saur and Rita Nikolai
Biography
Robert Maranto is the 21st Century Chair in Leadership in the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, USA. With others, he has produced 16 scholarly books including Educating Believers: Religion and School Choice (2021) and The Free Inquiry Papers (2025).
Tommaso Agasisti is Full Professor at Politecnico di Milano School of Management, Italy, where he teaches Public Management and researches performance evaluation and innovation of public schools, universities and local governments. He authored more than 130 publications. Since 2019, he has served on the Governing Board of Politecnico di Milano, Italy.
Rodrigo Queiroz e Melo is invited Assistant Professor at Universidade Católica Portuguesa and Vice-President of the study centre CEPCEP, Portugal. He is CEO of AEEP, Portuguese Association of Independent Schools, Chairman of ECNAIS – European Council of National Associations of Independent Schools and Vice-President of EFEE – European Federation of Education Employers.
