The Marketization Spiral Under Policy Uncertainty: A Multi-Level Analysis of Private Schools as Educational Firms in a Politically Polarized Environment
SAGE Open, cilt.16, sa.3, 2026 (SSCI, Scopus)
- Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
- Cilt numarası: 16 Sayı: 3
- Basım Tarihi: 2026
- Doi Numarası: 10.1177/21582440261491774
- Dergi Adı: SAGE Open
- Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Scopus, EBSCO Education Source, Education Abstracts, ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Directory of Open Access Journals, Academic Search Ultimate (EBSCO), Social Science Premium Collection (ProQuest), Education Source Ultimate (EBSCO)
- Anahtar Kelimeler: class reproduction, Neoliberalism, pedagogical autonomy, private schooling spiral, privatization in education, shadow education, Turkey
- Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet
Özet
This study examines how educational marketization is experienced and reproduced under conditions of policy uncertainty in Turkey. Rather than treating privatization as the aggregate outcome of individual parental choices, the study conceptualizes it as a dynamic and self-reinforcing process involving interactions among structural conditions, institutional practices, and individual responses. Using an interpretive qualitative design informed by phenomenology and systems thinking, the study draws on in-depth interviews with 24 parents and 15 private-school teachers across primary, middle, and high school levels. The data were analyzed through thematic analysis. Three interrelated patterns emerged. First, parents experienced private schooling less as a voluntary preference than as a response to declining confidence in public education and perceived educational risk. Second, this response shifted substantial financial responsibility to households, normalizing borrowing, postponed consumption, and long-term sacrifice. Third, teachers described market-oriented expectations, particularly parental satisfaction and performance pressures, as constraining pedagogical discretion and reshaping school–family relationships. Integrating these findings, the study develops the concept of the private schooling spiral to explain how educational insecurity, household adaptation, and market-oriented institutional practices can mutually reinforce one another. The study contributes a multi-level account of educational marketization and highlights its implications for educational inequality, pedagogical autonomy, and public trust.