Parents and School Choice in Lebanon

Abstract

My research study is intended to better understand school choice in contemporary Lebanon. It does so by examining the perceptions of parents about the educational choices available to them and their children during a severe economic crisis compounded by the Covid-19 pandemic and the Beirut blast. The study seeks to offer a richer picture of the current Lebanese educational system and the implications of this for educational equity and opportunity. This is set within the context of a longstanding history of educational marketization in Lebanon, which is principally linked to an extensive network of private religious and secular schools. The study first adopts the interpretive and then the critical paradigm and addresses the research problem by adopting an exploratory methodology with a qualitative research design. The design is based on in-depth semi-structured interviews with a sample of parents identified via a pilot survey that was conducted during the pilot phase. The study’s main qualitative data collection method is in-depth interviews conducted online over a period of 5 months. The data derived from them are analyzed thematically by using Braun and Clarke’s (2006) six-phase thematic analysis framework. The findings of the study reveal that the several crises that hit Lebanon in the last few years have impacted parents’ school choice negatively and choice has become a privilege to certain high socioeconomic groups. Also, the study reveals the significant failings in the heavily marketized Lebanese school system including, in particular, an economically driven exodus from private schools, the associated collapse of an already degraded public education system, and further stratification and inequity resulting from the increasing differentiation in the quality of education afforded within the private sector. The effects of this upon parents and the choices available to them are presented in terms of contrasts in the extent to which different groups of parents have been impacted with low to middle-income parents experiencing the most dramatic effects.