Free schools were a flagship policy of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition (2010-15), aligned with the broader academisation programme, yet both consolidating and transcending New Labour's educational narrative between 1997 and 2010. Driven by political 'modernisers' such as Prime Minister David Cameron and his Education Secretary Michael…

Critical pedagogues advocate a constructivist approach to learning emphasising the self-directed construction of knowledge from the learners' experiences while also expecting students to develop an explicit critique of the social order. However, the use of a constructivist approach for the pursuit of explicit ideological goals leaves educators…

This article uses oral history, archival material, and published primary sources to examine the competing conceptions of "innovation" at work in the creation and operation of the West Philadelphia Community Free School (WPCFS) from 1969 to 1978. One of the longest-running initiatives in the School District of Philadelphia's experimental…

In an article written for The Clearing House in 1974 titled, "Alternative schools: Can they survive?", Gerald Brunetti described features of schools that served as an alternative to mainstream public education. He raised the question of whether or not such schools would continue to exist in the future. A search of the literature reveals…

This paper examines how the English educational state has consistently acted to support private schooling in areas where fee-paying schools would be otherwise financially unviable. Educational data on private school participation since the 2008 financial crisis reveals the stark regional divides between London and the South-East of England and the…

This article examines the background in which enterprises called free schools, as well as complementary educational activities, have taken root in Chile. Two kinds of recently burgeoning free schools are identified; one supplementing regular schooling with a social justice focus, and another that is a fully fledged alternative to other schooling.…

The notion of "competitive excellence" is an enduring cornerstone of UK educational policy. Most recently, expanding and adapting New Labour's Academy project with the introduction of free schools, the Coalition's approach advances and embeds competitive market-based forms of community engagement in education. Responding to this policy…

The Danish free school tradition has entailed a large degree of associational freedom for non-governmental schools, religious as well as non-religious. Until the late 1990s, the non-governmental schools were under no strict ideological or pedagogical limitations; they could recruit teachers and students according to their own value base, and were…

In England, Free Schools were announced as a dramatic way in which government policy has changed such that it is now possible for groups of parents, organisations or charities to start their own schools. They are seen as an attempt to stimulate to "supply side" of the quasi-market of schools, but they are not the first such initiatives.…

After the revolution in 1918, many reformist teachers were convinced that they could put into practice their dreams of a free and independent school in a democratic republic. Four state schools in Hamburg became anti-authoritarian school communities, in which teachers, parents and students experimented with revolutionary concepts of education. For…

This paper explores how "social democratic" Sweden initiated and implemented choice reforms that attracted the interest of "liberal" England. By studying how English media framed and portrayed the Swedish free school "export" from 2008 to 2014, this paper aims to describe and discuss how a market-oriented policy idea,…

A review of American charter schools and Swedish free-school research is outlined, providing strong evidence that both free-market models are flawed in their claims of enhancing young people's educational experience. A substantial body of work is included that strongly indicates charter and free schools increase social segregation and lower…

The extent of between-school segregation, or clustering of disadvantaged students within schools, in England varies depending on the indicator of interest. For example, the trend over time for segregation by student poverty differs from those for ethnicity or special educational need. Additionally the causes of the level of segregation for any…

The recent progress of "co-operative schools" both confirms and disrupts many assumptions surrounding contemporary compulsory schooling. The term itself refers to an eclectic array of schools, both primary and secondary, of which there were, by June 2012, almost 300 in England that have adopted co-operative values, in terms of…

The Educational Missions in the Second Spanish Republic (1931-1936) had the purpose of making available, "especially to those living in rural areas, the feeling of progress and the means to participate in it, as well as in its moral stimuli and in the examples of universal progress, so that all the peoples of Spain, even those in remote areas…