Reasons for School Choice in The Netherlands and in Finland. Occasional Paper.

Autor/inn/en	Denessen, Eddie; Sleegers, Peter; Smit, Frederik
Institution	Columbia Univ., New York, NY. National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education.
Titel	Reasons for School Choice in The Netherlands and in Finland. Occasional Paper.
Quelle	(2001), (25 Seiten) PDF als Volltext kostenfreie Datei Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Monographie
Schlagwörter	Educational Improvement; Educational Quality; Elementary Secondary Education; Foreign Countries; School Choice; Social Influences; Finland; Netherlands + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Teaching improvement; Unterrichtsentwicklung; Quality of education; Bildungsqualität; Ausland; Choice of school; Schulwahl; Sozialer Einfluss; Finnland; Niederlande
Abstract	Current educational reforms encompass increasing freedom of parental choice. Parental choice is seen as a stimulus for school improvement and school quality control. One of the central thoughts behind freedom of parental choice is that the quality of education will increase when the educational system has to act using market mechanisms, in which the principle of "demand and supply" prevails and where competition becomes a major feature of the educational system. This study focused on the relative importance of parents' reasons for school choice, hoping to provide insight into how reasons for school choice are imbedded within cultural contexts. Data were gathered regarding the reasons 244 Dutch and 244 Finnish parents choose schools. Results show that people from both countries emphasize social education as a leading reason for choosing a school and that academic achievement and religious values are seen as least important. It is recommended that research on reasons for school choice should pay more attention to social factors influencing school choice than to issues of academic achievement. (Contains 21 references.) (RT)
Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC