The Economics of Education, 2nd Edition

Chapter 38

Private schools: choice and effects

Francis Green      UCL Institute of Education, London, United Kingdom

Abstract

Although private schools educate, in most countries, only a small proportion of children, there is widespread interest in what private schools do that might be different from state schools, and in what their effect might be on other schools, on the education system as a whole, and on society. This interest stems, on one hand, from concerns with social mobility and with educational inequality. If, as is common though not universal, the schools are socially exclusive, and if the schools prove to be gateways to economically-rewarding jobs and positions in society, then private schools may play a role in limiting ...