Private encroachment through crisis-making: The privatization of education for refugees

How has education for refugees been shaped by broader dynamics of educational privatization? This paper argues that the invoking of the ‘refugee crisis’ narrative has been a crucial force in facilitating the privatization of this sector. The urgency of crisis helps to naturalize private actors’ part...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inEducation policy analysis archives Vol. 27; no. 126; pp. 126 - 148
Main Author Le, Hang Minh
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Colleges of Education at Arizona State University and the University of South Florida 14.10.2019
Arizona State University
Subjects
Access to Education
Adolescents
Children
Commercialization
crisis
Crisis Management
discourse analysis
Educational Finance
Educational Innovation
Educational Policy
Elementary Secondary Education
Foreign Countries
Government Role
International Organizations
Partnerships in Education
Position Papers
Private Sector
Privatization
Public Sector
refugee education
Refugees
Social Problems
Social Values
Lebanon
Turkey
Jordan
Syria
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Summary:How has education for refugees been shaped by broader dynamics of educational privatization? This paper argues that the invoking of the ‘refugee crisis’ narrative has been a crucial force in facilitating the privatization of this sector. The urgency of crisis helps to naturalize private actors’ participation in refugees’ education as equal partners to host governments, multilateral agencies, and civil society. Consistent with Stephen Ball’s (2012) distinction between privatization in and of education, the privatization of refugee education also advances through two dimensions: the creation of a new space – a new ‘market’ – for private actors, and the infusion of market and business principles such as ‘innovation’ into all aspects of education. The crisis narrative has created a new ‘horizon of taken-for-granted’ (Hall, 1993), where it is simply natural that private actors must participate in the assumption of the traditional responsibilities of the state in providing education for refugees. 
ISSN:1068-2341
1068-2341
DOI:10.14507/epaa.27.4325