Overview

This book delves into the pervasive commercialisation of public schooling, tracing its roots and examining its current manifestations. From the evolution of textbook publishing to the digital transformation led by global edu-businesses, it sheds light on how commercial interests have reshaped education policy, curriculum design, and teaching practices worldwide. Through a series of in-depth case studies this book explores the intensification of commercial influences in schools. It examines the historical rise of education corporatisation, the integration of commercial curriculum resources in classrooms and the ethical dilemmas posed by public school sponsorship. The work also analyses teachers' agency in navigating prescriptive curriculum materials, the impacts of EdTech during the pandemic, and addresses how public schools themselves have become market players, branding and monetising their operations. Drawing on Australian and international contexts, this book highlights the complex interplay between commercialisation, teacher professionalism, and equitable education access. A must-read for educators, policymakers, and researchers, this book provides insights into the implications of school commercialisation. It offers practical strategies to navigate this landscape while advocating for reforms that prioritise educational integrity over profit, ensuring that public schools remain spaces of equitable and holistic learning.

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9781032081328

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Reviews

Schools have long been viewed as sources of profit-making, and Anna Hogan is the most astute and critical observer of commercial and private sector involvement working in education today. Commercialising Public Schooling provides a compelling and timely analysis of how contemporary schools have become thoroughly penetrated by commercial vendors – from companies selling well-being services, textbook publishers and corporate fast food sponsors to the EdTech industry. The book is an essential guide to the complexities of commercialisation in education and its consequences for the future of public schooling itself. Ben Williamson, Professor, University of Edinburgh, UK This book is an excellent, thoughtful, and much needed exploration of a complex and evolving phenomenon in education. Synthesising a decade of research, it offers a rich and balanced analysis of commercialisation in public schooling, with valuable perspectives on its implications for teachers, curriculum, and the system more broadly. It makes a compelling case for a nuanced understanding of commercialisation and its many forms. By providing important insights on a topic critical to the future of public education, it is a vital resource for educators, policymakers, and researchers. Linda Rönnberg, Professor, Umeå University, Sweden Drawing on a decade of focused research, Anna Hogan’s Commercialising Public Schooling proffers much-needed clarity, nuanced analyses and history of this significant and growing contemporary phenomena challenging the ‘publicness’ of public schools. As such, this book is essential reading for policy makers, teachers, teacher unions and researchers, indeed all those seeking to understand the nature, extent and effects of these developments and striving to maintain the principles of equity, inclusion and fairness as important to the public character of government schools. Bob Lingard, Emeritus Professor, The University of Queensland, Australia

Author Information

Anna Hogan is an Associate Professor in the School of Education at the Queensland University of Technology, Australia. Her research interests focus on issues of marketisation, and how related concepts of privatisation, commercialisation, and philanthropy affect public schools and those in them.

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