MANUFACTURING CONSENT FOR PRIVATIZATION IN PUBLIC EDUCATION - THE RISE OF A SOCIAL FINANCE NETWORK IN CANADA - Key research on social finance networks and education privatization

Oct 15, 2026

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Multiple forms of privatization are emerging in Canada’s public sector, including public–private partnerships. This article examines “social finance” as one such approach and analyzes a network of public, private, and not-for-profit organizations that promotes social finance to fund public services, including education. Using social network analysis and critical discourse analysis, the authors identify discursive and extra-discursive practices that legitimize social finance and manufacture consent for increased privatization, with significant implications for public education policy.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages33

Reading Time1 h 23 min

AccessFree to download

Manufacturing Consent for Privatization in Public Education

Social finance networks and privatization in education

Definitions and forms of social finance

Concerns and implications for public education

MANUFACTURING CONSENT FOR PRIVATIZATION IN PUBLIC EDUCATION: THE RISE OF A SOCIAL FINANCE NETWORK IN CANADA Wendy Poole, Vicheth Sen, and Gerald Fallon, University of British Columbia Multiple forms of privatization are emerging in the Canadian public sector, including public–private partnerships. This article focuses on one approach to public–private partnerships called “social finance,” and a network of public, private, and not-for-profit organizations that promotes social finance as a means of funding public services, including education. The authors employ social network analysis to identify key members of this network, and critical discourse analysis to examine the discourse the network produces. Findings reveal a number of discursive and extra-discursive practices the network uses that legitimize social finance approaches to funding public services. These practices manufacture consent for increased privatization in the public sphere, and this has important implications for public education. Due to its history as a society built around a broad-based social safety net, many Canadians still consider the state to be the main provider of social services and are “suspect of initiatives that blur the boundaries between the private sector and social service providers”(Johnson, 2003, p. 5). From the perspective of most Canadians, privatization means selling off public assets to the public sector, such as the sale of Crown corporations to private interests. But privatization takes many forms and some non-traditional forms may be less obvious to the general public. Within this paper, our argument is not that education provision is moving out of the public sector and into the private sector, thus involving a transfer of ownership or privatization of education; instead, we focus on privatization in public education, where education remains publicly owned, but the private sector is involved in substantive ways. Lubienski (2006) outlinesa typology of privatization that includes, but is not limited to, privatization of the provision of certain services normally provided by the public sector (e.g., outsourcing services); enabling public providers to offer services on a pay-per-service or profit basis (e.g., international education); operating schools according to market principles (e.g., choice and competition); diversification of funding sources, leading to a mix of private and public funding of schools (e.g., public–private partnerships); and allowing for-profit operation of public schools (e.g., educational management companies) . Ball (2007, 2008, 2009, 2012) investigates an emerging form of privatization in education, network governance, which involves a shift from centralized and bureaucratic government to governance in and by networks. Ball (2008, p. 747) states: These new policy communities bring new kinds of actors into the policy process, validate new policy discourses and enable new forms of policy influence and enactment, and in some respects disable or disenfranchise established actors and agencies. In this study, we focus on a particular network that does all of these things, allowing the private and not-for-profit (NFP) sectors to colonize public policy. Government is part of this network and plays an active, not a passive, role. Such networks promote increased privatization in public education. The network on which this research centres comprises public, private, and NFP organizations that advocate social finance as a means to fund provision of public goods and services, including education. The Canadian government defines social finance as “an approach to mobilizing multiple sources of capital that delivers a social dividend and an economic return in the achievement of social and environmental goals”(Human Resources and Skills Development Canada, 2013, p. 8) . In Canada, social finance has been implemented in various forms such as social impact bonds (SIBs), social investment funds (SIFs), v

FAQs

What is the focus of the study on privatization in Canadian public education?

The study focuses on “social finance” as an approach within public–private partnerships and on how a network of public, private, and not-for-profit organizations promotes social finance to fund public services, including education.

How does the article analyze the social finance network?

It uses social network analysis to identify key members of the network and critical discourse analysis to examine the discourse produced by the network.

What do the findings suggest about increased privatization in public education?

The authors find discursive and extra-discursive practices that legitimize social finance approaches and manufacture consent for greater privatization in the public sphere, affecting public education.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Muffet