The primary research question of this thesis is: Are fee paying private schools serving low income communities in developing countries consistent or in conflict with the United Nations concept of the right to education? A classical liberal framework is then used to explore the following four additional supplementary questions: a. What is meant by the United Nations concept of the right to education? How did it come to be and what were the implications for the role of government, the private sector and parents? b. How and why did the colonial authorities intervene in education in Kenya? What role did the private sector play in these developments? And what were the hidden costs and unintended consequences associated with these interventions? c. Is there any evidence of private schools serving low income communities in Kenya either prior to or during colonial rule? d. Did the introduction of free primary education in Kenya in 2003 have a negative impact on local private schools and did the crowding out process take place and was it similar to the UK experience previously documented by E.G. West? The thesis uses a classical liberal approach as its theoretical framework which is discussed in Chapter Two. The research methods used in this thesis are set out in Chapter Three. The case study approach is discussed and the issues concerning best practice in research are explored. Chapter Four introduces historical and contemporary evidence of the growth of private schools serving low income communities in developing countries and in Chapter Five the United Nations concept of the right to education is examined and defined. The findings from the Kenya case study will be reported and discussed in Chapters Six, Severn and Eight. Chapter Six is an historical study of the initial missionary and colonial interventions in education in Kenya and Chapter Seven will examine the rise and fall of Kenya’s independent school movement during the 1930’s and 40’s. Chapter Eight will then fast forward to 2003 and the introduction of Free Primary Education (FPE) in Kenya. Based on these findings and conclusions the final chapter (Chapter Nine) will introduce an alternative to the current rights based approach to education for all.

There is a lack of research on the middle class in general, and especially on those who attend independent schools. This is noticeably profound in the field of educational decision-making at the ages of sixteen and eighteen. Whilst recent studies have attempted to address such issues, the focus has tended to fall on a very limited number of students attending highly selective schools, which are often based in London: and are heavily reliant on parental accounts of their offspring's decision-making. In this study, I seek to address these identified gaps, in presenting a study of student decision-making within a non-academically-selective independent school for girls, given the pseudonym 'Midham School', which is located in a town in the Midlands of England. The study draws on observational data from Careers lessons and institutional school events such as Open Days, and students' own responses given in a questionnaire and in semi-structured small-group interviews, as well as interviews with key staff members, collected over the course of one academic year. Resulting from these, a picture will be built up of the dominant discourses relating to educational decision-making within the school and home. Theoretically, the study addresses aspects of both structure and agency. Although there is a focus on the way in which individual young women draw on differing discourses in order to inform their agentic decision-making, these decisions are seen to be framed by structural factors such as social class, gender and academic ability. These factors are shown to have a defining effect on how the young women constructed themselves (and were constructed) as gendered and classed individuals through the decisions that they (and their families) made regarding their education, training and future careers.

Errata is pasted inside front end paper. / Bibliography: leaves 309-329. / vii, 329 leaves : ill., maps ; 30 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Education, 1996?