The Australian middle class and education: a small-scale study of the school choice experience as framed by ‘My School’ within inner city families

With the launch of the ‘My School’ website in 2010, Australia became a relative latecomer to the publication of national school performance comparisons. This paper primarily seeks to explore the school choice experience as framed by ‘My School’ website, for participating middle-class families. We will draw on Bourdieusian theory of cultural capital and relationship networks and Australian-based school choice research in order to contribute to understandings regarding the application of ‘My School’ data within participating families. Data collection consisted of qualitative, semi-structured, in-depth interviews with five families, each based within inner-city suburbs of Melbourne, Victoria. The findings of this small-scale study indicate that participating middle-class families possessed highly developed strategies for locating and achieving enrolment in school-of-choice and therefore did not seek to apply available data on ‘My School’ to decision-making, despite each participant reviewing the available data.