School Choice and Social Justice: Understanding Educational Currency in an Academic Market

• In Event: Privilege, Access, Privatization, and Equity in School Choice Environments

Abstract

Advocates claim that providing families the opportunity to decide where their children will learn is more equitable and socially responsive. The following research focusses on the inequities of the process of school selection - the navigation and participation of the education markets. This is story of how public-school teachers navigate school choice in Ontario, Canada. Participants share their insider experiences and how their cultural, social and economic capital allow them to collect and spend educational currency (EC) to choose schools for their own children. I provide insight into what exactly EC is, and how possessing this commodity forms a more segregated system. Finally, I discuss opportunities to distribute educational currency in order to ensure that school choice is more equitable.

Author

• Julie Chami Lindsay, University of Toronto