School Choice in a Market Environment: Individual versus Social Expectations

Abstract

School choice is a key factor connecting personal preferences (beliefs, desires, and needs) and school offer in education markets. While it is assumed that preferences are highly individualistic forms of expectations by means of which parents select schools satisfying their internal moral standards, this paper argues that a better matching between parental preferences and school offer is achieved when individuals take into account their relevant network vicinity, thereby constructing social expectations regarding school choice. We develop two related models (individual expectations and social expectations) and prove that they are driven by a Lyapunov function, obtaining that both models converge to fixed points. Also, we assess their performance by conducting computational simulations. While the individual expectations model shows a probabilistic transition and a critical threshold below which preferences concentrate in a few schools and a significant amount of students is left unattended by the school offer, the social expectations model presents a smooth dynamics in which most of the schools have students all the time and no students are left out. We discuss our results considering key topics of the empirical research on school choice in educational market environments and conclude that social expectations contribute to improve information and lead to a better matching between school offer and parental preferences.

Predictors of School Choice: The Case of Parents in Cape Coast, Ghana

“…For example, parents for whom religion is a vital facet of their lives will usually choose a SHS with a strong religious background than the one with secular culture, particularly public schools. In general, the main reasons that surfaced in the literature irrespective of the school choice sets or school choice system and also, the wording were; excellent academic record, teacher qualification and commitment, proximity of school to home, discipline, small class size, extracurricular activities, cost or affordability, parental involvement, parent's social-economic background and parent's social network factors (Amonoo, 2014;Canals et al, 2018;DeAngelis & Erickson, 2018;Woods et al, 2018).…”

“…In this twenty-first century, parents' taste and preference regarding schooling and education in general, are changing so fast which is making it difficult for traditional SHS operators to survive. They are losing their market to SHSs that have been upgraded into model schools, international schools, and with modern and industrially related curricula (Canals, Goles, Mascareño, Rica & Ruz, 2018). Contemplating present day parents' decision of a SHS and why they pick such a school would empower SHS administrators to comprehend and cater for the needs and preferences of these parents.…”

“…Also, it appears there is lack of empirical research in the prior literature regarding predictors of school choice in Ghana. Previous studies have focused primarily on developed communities (Canals et al, 2018;DeAngelis & Erickson, 2018;Jabbar et al, 2019), and very little practical research has been done on school choice in developing communities such as Cape Coast, Ghana (Amonoo, 2014). Due to differences in cultural practices and socialisation between nations, particularly those in developed and developing nations, the conclusions of the works conducted in developed countries may not be generalised on developing countries.…”

Factors affecting parents’ choice of schools for Grade 1 learners

“…What needs to be acknowledged is that the legislative framework, about South Africa, created a quasi-market system in the education sector. According to Canals et al (2018), the discussion regarding school choice has been on centralising the concept, which sees choice as codes for the marketing of education. School policies and legislation nationally and internationally focus on regulating school choice; this is not different within the South African context (Moodley 2019).…”

HHA: An Attentive Prediction Model for Academic Abnormality

“…Then the advice is provided by human experts to determine if the student is abnormal, which is represented by goal = {SAF E, OU T }. OU T indicates that the student is in an abnormal state and is likely to fail to graduate normally [43]. The goal of our task is to distinguish OU T students as much as possible.…”