This book uses a multi-dimensional conceptual framework to demonstrate how neoliberal forces have been manifested through changes to K–12 public education finance policy in British Columbia, Canada between 2001 and 2015. The text offers in-depth critical policy analysis to illustrate how the public education system has been impacted by the emergence of a hybrid model of public-private funding. By examining the impacts of this neoliberalized model, in which school districts must compete for public funding and engage in for-profit activities, the book highlights emerging financial inequalities; exacerbated inequities for students; increased entrepreneurialism; closer alignment of administrators’ subjectivities with a managerial approach to educational leadership; and an illusion of local autonomy. Ultimately, the text makes powerful contributions by calling attention to detrimental processes of neoliberalization, marketization, and privatization within public education, as well as the managerialization of educational leadership. This text will benefit researchers, academics, educators, and educational leaders with an interest in the politics of education policy and finance, school district leadership, international and comparative education, and the sociology of education.

In this book, the author argues that the bureaucratization of schooling has interfered with the process of education. The costs, complexity, and rigidity of the educational edifice leaves it unresponsive to parental concerns and reluctant to measure its own inadequacies such as illiteracy and high dropout rates among students. The author identifies two conceptual bases for action to address this problem: public choice theory and agency theory, discusses the issue of identity in its relation to education, and then makes the case for charter schools in Canada, stressing definitions of community, parental rights, and the need to combat bureaucratic tendencies. Two discussants respond to the author's analysis, one amplifying his call for charter schools and the other arguing that the basis for demanding reform is less clear than the author claims.

From Austria to India, university administrators and public policy makers are grappling with the high costs of higher education. Comparing the models by which higher education is funded in the United States and seven other countries, developed and developing, the chapters of this textbook help identify effective financial strategies to meet fast-evolving demands. How can each nation and each institution achieve the right balance between quality and quantity, access and equity, need-based and merit-based aid, government funding and private endowments? In these nine chapters, case studies discuss the different approaches being taken and the varying results produced. This handbook on the finance of higher education is essential reading for college administrators, policy-makers and graduate programs in higher education administration.

Sociology of Education in Canada utilizes a contemporary theoretical focus to analyze how education in Canada is affected by pre-existing and persistent inequalities among members of society. It presents the historical and cultural factors that have shaped our current education system, examines the larger social trends that have contributed to present problems, discusses the various interest groups involved, and analyzes the larger social discourses that influence any discussion of these issues. To achieve this, Karen Robson uses many current, topical, and relatable issues in Canadian education to ensure that readers fully comprehend the information being presented and leave with an appreciation of how the sociology of education is inextricably linked to issues of stratification.

The objective of this book is to prompt a re-examination of financial literacy, its social foundations, and its relationship to citizenship education. The collection includes topics that concern indigenous people’s perspectives, critical race theory, and transdisciplinary perspectives, which invite a dialogue about the ideologies that drive traditional and critical perspectives. This volume offers readers opportunities to learn about different views of financial literacy from a variety of sociological, historical and cultural perspectives. The reader may perceive financial literacy as representing a multifaceted concept best interpreted through a non-segregated lens. The volume includes chapters that describe groundings for revising standards, provide innovative teaching concepts, and offer unique sociological and historical perspectives. This book contains 13 chapters, with each one speaking to a distinctive topic that, taken as a whole, offers a well-rounded vision of financial literacy to benefit social education, its research, and teaching. Each chapter provides a response from an alternative view, and the reader can also access an eResource featuring the authors’ rejoinders. It therefore offers contrasting visions about the nature and purpose of financial education. These dissimilar perspectives offer an opportunity for examining different social ideologies that may guide approaches to financial literacy and citizenship, along with the philosophies and principles that shape them. The principles that teach and inform about financial literacy defines the premises for base personal and community responsibility. The work invites researchers and practitioners to reconsider financial literacy/financial education and its social foundations. The book will appeal to a range of students, academics and researchers across a number of disciplines, including economics, personal finance/personal economics, business ethics, citizenship, moral education, consumer education, and spiritual education.