Education governance and privatization in Portugal: Media coverage on public and private education

Abstract

This paper aims to discuss recent changes in Portugal’s education policy. Portugal offers an interesting scenario to study the different ways the economic crisis has brought new opportunities to strengthen the privatization agenda. We specifically focus on media coverage and the contractualization of education services with private schools through ‘association contracts’. In the 1980s the Portuguese State through these contracts financed private schools to operate in areas where the public offering was insufficient, thereby ensuring the public access to education and preventing marginalization. Nowadays, however, these contracts are seen as an ideological banner both for and against education privatization. We present an empirical study based on documental analysis of 180 news articles published in the Portuguese media on the changes in the contractualization of education services. The results show two main audiences sustaining distinct societal projects, comprised of a variety of actors, who are either for or against ‘association contracts’. The actors justify their positions based on their understanding of the State’s role in providing education, the policies involving the right to education and decreasing inequalities.

Plataformas y digitalización de la educación pública: Explorando su adopción en Cataluña

“…Por otro lado, en el contexto de los países del sur de Europa, aunque existe una amplia literatura sobre la economía política de las reformas de privatización exógena y endógena (Antunes y Viseu, 2019;Peruzzo et al, 2022;Saura, 2015;Saura et al, 2022;Verger et al, 2019;Verger et al, 2016), aún hay pocos estudios que analicen los procesos de privatización ligados a la plataformización de la educación en esta región (Grimaldi et al, 2022). En este contexto, Cataluña resulta un caso especialmente relevante debido a su larga trayectoria de políticas de digitalización en el ámbito de la educación pública (Gros et al, 2020), y por el terreno que han ido ganando las grandes corporaciones tecnológicas en el campo educativo.…”

Globalization, privatization, marginalization: Mapping and assessing connections and consequences in/through education

“…While this policy clearly represents a form of privatization "in" education, it is also bound up with dynamics that allow globalization, privatization, and marginalization to operate "through" this policy. To that end, and importantly, Antunes and Viseu (2019) highlight the larger and long-term political-economic conditions that have encouraged privatization. Since the 1970s, when the state became responsible for universal public education, the government has struggled to meet the educational demand of citizens due to limited resources.…”

The political decision on Portugal’s entry into PISA: A research note

“…in education allows politicians to signal to their publics that they are working seriously towards education change and that they are concerned about education quality, learning outcomes and the future of children. (Verger et al, 2018: 20) It should also be mentioned that our analysis is framed by a concept of education policy which, in its public dimension, refers to a process, to beliefs and patterns of interpretation as well as of choice of values that define the nature of political problems and calls for action, and which is constructed, beyond the actors implicated in the government's action, by other actors, both individual and collective, public and private (Antunes and Viseu, 2019;Lopo, 2016;Van Zanten, 2004;Verger et al, 2016). In this group we can also find the media, due to the role they play in the education policy arena (Blackmore and Thorpe, 2003;Grey and Morris, 2018;Kevin and Kuttner, 2018).…”