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Privatizing education policy: exploring the role, networks and strategies of philanthropic actors to advance educational reform glocally (Part 1)

Sat, March 22, 1:15 to 2:30pm, Palmer House, Floor: 7th Floor, Burnham 1

Group Submission Type: Formal Panel Session

Proposal

In recent years, education systems have undergone deep changes in traditional forms of governance. Among other things, these changes are marked by an increasingly direct involvement of new private actors in education policy formulation and education provision. Education systems are exposed to constant crises and ongoing reform processes. In such a scenario, philanthropic actors often present themselves as a private solution to the problems faced by public education (lack of funding, poor performance, etc.).
In a context marked by the influence of the global education reform movement, this panel aims to analyze the role, networks and strategies mobilized by philanthropic actors to influence education policy and school practices in education systems in both the Global North and South. Starting from the distinction between exogenous and endogenous privatization, it has been pointed out that during the last decades a third form of privatization has emerged: privatization through education policy, which refers to the different forms - consultancies, research, evaluations, lobbying, among others - in which private actors (e.g. companies, philanthropic and non-governmental organizations) get involved in the process of designing and enacting education policies (Ball & Youdell, 2008; Ball, 2012; Moschetti et al., 2020). Although the link between philanthropic actors and education is a global trend observed over the last decades (Tarlau & Moller, 2020), the focus of study has been mostly on the role of international organizations such as the World Bank or the OECD (Verger et al., 2020).
Different studies have focused on understanding how philanthropy operates in different school systems, studying the actions, mechanisms and influences that philanthropic actors have developed in the educational space, highlighting three main trends. Firstly, several studies have shown how philanthropic organizations are gaining a foothold in the educational field with the aim of transforming and ‘modernizing’ public schools, promoting changes in school management and structure, as well as ‘jurisdictional replacements’ that allow private actors to take on historically public functions, a trend highlighted in countries such as Brazil and the United Kingdom (Tarlau & Moeller, 2020; Olmedo, 2014; Reckhow & Snyder, 2014). Thus, through the generation of policy papers, targeted studies, campaigns, lobbying (‘meetingness’), networking or support for advocacy groups (Fontdevila et al., 2021; Ball & Olmedo, 2011), philanthropic actors seek to influence the actions of the school system.
Secondly, different studies have shown that the impact of philanthropy in education has been exercised through the generation of programmes, actions or policies that compete with or absorb actions commonly entrusted to public bodies, such as teacher training, school scholarships, educational research or curricular adjustments, being active agents in the creation of consortia, alliances, foundations or initiatives in areas as diverse as teacher training, educational technologies or positive parenting (Pedroni & Apple, 2005; Lubienski et al., 2016), prototypical examples being the Teach for America programme (United States) or the Movimento pela Base Nacional Común (Brazil), as analyzed by Avelar & Ball (2018). Finally, other studies have shown philanthropic actors’ relevance in the coordination or construction of public-private networks, which allow for mobilizing resources, promoting ideas and generating legislative changes. In this way, philanthropic actors can redefine the very nature of education policy, promoting transformations that blur the boundaries between public and private sector (Edwards, 2021; Shiroma, 2013).
Considering previous research, this double panel seeks to show and discuss recent research results that explore the role of contemporary philanthropy in education systems with different regulatory regimes, administrative traditions and levels of education marketization. Using a wide range of methodological approaches (network ethnography, media analysis, single and comparative case studies), this double panel offers a global perspective on the relationship between philanthropy and education privatization with evidence from countries in the global North and South, such as Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Chile, Denmark, Portugal and Spain. Specifically, this panel aims to answer the following questions:
What are the philanthropic actors active in the different countries?
What are their motivations and mechanisms for influencing educational reform?
What institutional, political and cultural factors facilitate or hinder their participation and influence in the policy process?
What are their framing strategies to gain mass media attention and influence agenda-setting?
What strategies do philanthropic actors mobilize to enter public schools and transform their practices and forms of governance?
This double-panel offers new insights into the study of the mechanisms deployed by philanthropic actors during policy-making processes, their networks, the production of public-private partnerships, and the enactment of philanthropic initiatives in public education systems. In this way, both panels seek to understand both the role of structural incidence and engagement of philanthropy in educational systems, addressing the macro, meso and micro incidence of these organizations.

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