Understanding Parent School Choice: The Development of a Holistic Theoretical Model.

Australian schools are presently facing an increasingly competitive educational marketplace. In many instances their survival is no longer purely dependent of their geographical location nor on how they position themselves within the market place. Current reforms in Australian education emphasise the direct link between investment in schools and educational outcomes (Gillard, 2008). The recent release of the Australian federal government's My School website further illustrates this bureaucratic mindset which seeks to provide so-called transparency across all aspects of school life. Thus, having an understanding of how parents choose schools is becoming more imperative. Many of the strategies schools presently utilise appear as ad hoc approaches often directed from a marketing perspective, with school leaders often being in the position to exercise considerable discretion in community-school relationships (Ryan, 2002). This paper proposes a theoretical framework with regard to the factors that influence parent's choice processes. This framework is based on the construct of symbolic interactionism, a perspective that focuses on the individual and tries to understand human actions (Charon, 1998). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]