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The marketization of a selective school transition in Switzerland

Author

Listed:
  • Itta Bauer

    (Department of Geography, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland)

  • Sara Landolt

    (Department of Geography, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland)

Abstract

This article seeks to contribute to ongoing debates on geographies of marketization, which are used in social and geographical research on education to account for the performativity and inherent inconsistencies of markets. This case study draws on students’ transition to the state-funded academically focused school track of Gymnasium in Zurich, Switzerland, which merges intellectual and social selectivity in a central entrance examination. This situation has fostered both a flourishing market of costly private preparation courses offered by educational entrepreneurs and free school courses. We elaborate a detailed picture of this educational market by showcasing the entanglement of public education, private supplementary education and parents obliged to advance their children’s educational careers and well-being. For this purpose, we draw linkages between these groups of actors and three key elements of geographies of marketization: problematization, commodification and calculative agents. Our findings show how this complex set of actors interacts in a constant reproduction and contestation of this market. The issues of social inequalities and subtle forms of resistance appear recurrently in our findings, and we argue that a geographies of marketization approach enables a fuller picture to be drawn of this educational transition market. In our conclusion, we suggest that this approach might also be helpful in critically questioning the borders between state-funded education and private supplementary education to improve the chances of transition to Gymnasium for all aspiring children regardless of their social or migration background.

Suggested Citation

  • Itta Bauer & Sara Landolt, 2024. "The marketization of a selective school transition in Switzerland," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 56(7), pages 1968-1984, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:56:y:2024:i:7:p:1968-1984
    DOI: 10.1177/0308518X241256844
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ranu Basu, 2007. "Negotiating Acts of Citizenship in an Era of Neoliberal Reform: The Game of School Closures," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(1), pages 109-127, March.
    2. Mark Hunter, 2020. "Race and the Geographies of Education: Markets, White Tone, and Racial Neoliberalism," Annals of the American Association of Geographers, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 110(4), pages 1224-1243, July.
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