In this article, I examine a case involving an equity-minded parent caught in a quandary about which school to select for her child, knowing that her decision may have consequences for others. To do so, I heuristically construct a fictional portrait and explore the deliberative process a parent might have through a dialogue taking place among…

Public K-12 education is a one-size-fits-all system that cannot meet the diverse needs of students. When parents choose a school, they look at several criteria unique to their situation and make trade-offs between their preferences based on their needs. The purpose of this study was to explore the factors influencing parents to enroll their…

As school choice policies continue to become more prevalent nationally and internationally, educational scholars are interested in understanding how parents make school selection decisions. Existing studies of parental educational decision-making mainly explore how white, middle-class parents make educational decisions. There is limited research…

This policy brief discusses "switchers" and "non-switchers" in the context of choice programs with broad eligibility (universal and near-universal choice programs). Switchers are students who would have enrolled in a public school without any financial assistance from a choice program. Non-switchers are students who would have…

The purpose of this narrative inquiry is to examine factors that influence military parents when they choose between on-base public schools and off-base public schools during a relocation for their child with special needs. According to the Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA, 2015) there are approximately 650,000 military dependent…

This study reviewed the college decision of non-first generation Latinx students from the Rio Grande Valley border region. While there is a vast amount of literature on first generation students, there is a gap in literature for non-first generation students overall, with a larger gap for those non-first generation students that may be Latinx from…

Flexischooling--the sharing of a child's education between home and school through formal agreement--is one of a range of 'alternative' education approaches that may adapt education to meet a child's special educational needs. This study considers qualitative data from an online survey conducted during November and December 2023 regarding parents'…

In recent decades, school choice has become a characteristic feature of urban school systems and, like students, teachers must choose among schools with various characteristics. Such decisions become new sites for teachers to enact their professional identity. This study uses qualitative data to explore the identity negotiations of 26 teachers…

For many years, traditional public schools were the dominant publicly funded institutions for educating children. However, in recent years, parents selected from various school-choice educational options. The problem in one local school district in southeastern United States is that stakeholders of the traditional theme schools were unable to…

With the rise in popularity of social media and e-commerce platforms, "discrete math" is at the heart of our online experiences, playing a front-end role in the recommendation of what to click, watch, or buy, or who to follow or friend, as well as a back-end role in data storage, access, and transfer. This thesis focuses on two such…

Finland has traditionally had a universal early childhood education and care (ECEC) system like the other Nordic countries, but in the last 15 years this system has undergone considerable marketisation and privatisation suggested to enable parental choice of ECEC. Much of the existing research on parental ECEC decisions has been conducted in…

Career-technical education, introduced to American high school systems in 1917, has experienced a significant increase in participation over the last several years, especially among African American students. However, racial inequity across career-technical programs are evident in those career-technical education programs related to science,…

Background: School choice models assume that parents and children have varied educational preferences and that catering to those preferences will result in superior educational experiences for all. Yet, we still know relatively little about how parents identify the best school "fit" for their children and families. This question is…

Despite homeschooling experiencing steady growth in recent decades, research is lacking to explain or theorize the complex interconnected network of factors and experiences behind parents choosing homeschooling in lieu of public or private school. According to the last twenty years of government surveys, the top reasons for homeschooling remain…

Understandings of gender diversity have increasingly recognised the rights and experiences of children and young people (Meyer & Pullen Sansfaçon, 2014, Smith et al., 2014). A small, but significant body of work focusses on the schooling experiences of gender diverse children/young people. The critical role parents play in supporting gender…