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Crafting Legitimation Projects: An Institutional Analysis of Private Education Businesses

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Sociological Forum

Institutional analyses of education systems typically assume that they secure legitimation through a process of almost unproblematic adoption of standard templates. A qualitative analysis of two forms of private education businesses reveals, however, that they routinely shed some of the most sacred schooling scripts. Despite this, these businesses are flourishing. This analysis finds that education organizations can actively craft a “legitimation project” by engaging in strategic isomorphism and by responding to new pressures in the technical environment, such as consumer demands for individualized education programs. In this view, garnering legitimacy includes multiple avenues for myth-making, coupling, and logic-of-confidence strategies.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author expresses gratitude to Art Budros, Scott Davies, Neil McLaughlin, Linda Quirke, Mitchell Stevens, and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful suggestions on earlier versions of this article. This research was generously supported by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council doctoral fellowship and a Social Science and Humanities Research Council INE Grant, led by Dr. Scott Davies.

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  1. Department of Sociology, McMaster University, 1280 Main St. West, Hamilton, Ontario, L8S 4M4, Canada

    Janice Aurini

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  1. Janice Aurini
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Correspondence to Janice Aurini.

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Aurini, J. Crafting Legitimation Projects: An Institutional Analysis of Private Education Businesses. Sociol Forum 21, 83–111 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11206-006-9004-8

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