Excellence in Primary Education. The 'best school' as a matter of negotiation in the discourse of school choice

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The project analyses the discourse surrounding communication in the context of parental decisions on primary schools. It can be assumed that primary school allocation according to place of residence has been increasingly challenged in academic and ambitious milieus. The parents concerned have come to regard the issue as a matter of their personal choice. The research project explores how ideas of best school, excellence and elite develop. We assume that the discourse on elite and excellence faces taboos in the primary education sector: in the context of the research unit the primary school is the area most strongly bound to the notion of equality in the sense of a school for all children. Adopting the mechanisms of elite construction used in the key research project, we focus on parental practices of choosing an educational institution. These practices are embedded in processes that create distinction and coherence. We furthermore analyse the perspective of the school itself, which in turn competes for children from specific milieus. From the discourse analysis perspective, the best school is presented as the result of ongoing processes of negotiation within the widely ramified field of referring discursive exertions.Two studies are carried out in different regions and follow the discourse on parental school choice using a combination of participant observation and qualitative interviews.The second period of the research project will focus on the longitudinal analysis of school choice practices. Two more interviews with the same parents will have been conducted searching for stability and changes in the relationship of the parents to certain schools. Furthermore the development of regional school landscapes will be investigated. Altogether the operation mode and functionality of the different arenas of school choice will be analysed.