Marketisation of adult education : Principals as business leaders, standardised teachers and responsibilised students

Abstract

The marketisation of education is a global phenomenon and has attracted increased interest during the last three decades, not least in terms of research on school choice and its consequences. However, while much research has been conducted on the marketisation of schooling, less attention has been directed at adult education. In this paper, focus is directed at institutional logics and institutional responses to the process of marketisation of adult education. More specifically, we focus on how a procurement system, implemented in order to create competition and to increase quality in adult education, influences how students construe themselves, as well as the way principals and teachers work. Our results indicate that teachers emerge as the main source of resistance towards an institutional logic emerging in the wake of marketisation, while principals and students to a large extent conform to the emerging institutional demands.