Examination of school choices of the middle class in the context of neoliberal education policies

The purpose of the present study was to examine the reasons of school choices of middle class families and their children within the context of the neoliberal education policies in Turkish education system. The study adopts a qualitative descriptive research approach. The data were collected via semi-structured interviews. The first study group consisted of 22 parents (13 public school - 9 private school). The second study group consisted of 30 students (16 public school - 14 private school) who were middle class, had enough TEOG score to be able to choose science high schools in Gaziantep in the academic year of 2016-2017. The data were analyzed using the descriptive and content analysis techniques. The findings indicated that academic, economic, environmental, personal, social and cultural, religious, politic factors and physical conditions affected middle class parents and students school choices. It was revealed that parents had expectations in terms of academic, social and personel development of their children; students had expectations in terms of academic and social. According to the study results; it was also concluded that public school participants were not satisfied with their schools in terms of academic and social activities. On the other hand, private school participants were not satisfied with their schools in terms of social activities.