The impact of marketisation on school segregation and educational equity and effectiveness: Evidence from Australia and Canada

Abstract

While marketisation has been promoted as a mechanism for improving educational equity and effectiveness, substantial evidence suggests that it may have the opposite effect. We contribute to this debate by examining educational equity and effectiveness in two similar countries that have embraced educational marketisation to different degrees. Drawing on data from the Programme for International Student Assessment and a causal-comparative design, we show that Australian schooling has more choice and competition, is more socially segregated, has larger school stratification of human and material resources, and has greater inequalities of educational outcomes and overall lower effectiveness than Canadian schooling. Our findings suggest that educational marketisation reduces educational equity and effectiveness by increasing school social segregation and stratification of resources.