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The Australian middle class and education: a small-scale study of the school choice experience as framed by ‘My School’ within inner city families

journal contribution
posted on 2012-01-01, 00:00 authored by Emma RoweEmma Rowe, J Windle
With the launch of the ‘My School’ website in 2010, Australia became a relative latecomer to the publication of national school performance comparisons. This paper primarily seeks to explore the school choice experience as framed by ‘My School’ website, for participating middle-class families. We will draw on Bourdieusian theory of cultural capital and relationship networks and Australian-based school choice research in order to contribute to understandings regarding the application of ‘My School’ data within participating families. Data collection consisted of qualitative, semi-structured, in-depth interviews with five families, each based within inner-city suburbs of Melbourne, Victoria. The findings of this small-scale study indicate that participating middle-class families possessed highly developed strategies for locating and achieving enrolment in school-of-choice and therefore did not seek to apply available data on ‘My School’ to decision-making, despite each participant reviewing the available data.

History

Journal

Critical studies in education

Volume

53

Issue

2

Pagination

137 - 151

Publisher

Tyalor & Francis

Location

London, Eng.

ISSN

1750-8487

eISSN

1750-8495

Language

eng

Publication classification

C1.1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal

Copyright notice

2012, Taylor & Francis