Ads and Fundraising: A Quasi-Market School System

This paper aims to produce analytical-theoretical contributions on the school as a new medium and a new channel of consumption, analyzing its central role in mediating between the state, market and civil society. The field of in-school marketing is largely unexplored in Portugal.

Thus the importance of this research and its guideline questions, rooted in a biased consumer society in the process of cultural reassignment, are as follows: which social win-win relationship practices or  legitimacy/visibility ones transacted by state, market and civil society are evident in their interaction with the school system?; how do in-school marketing activities square with public-private organizations’ corporate responsibility?; are the ethical parameters of legislated and self-regulated best practice principles synonymous with consensus? Another purpose of this research was also testing a Working with Schools Best Practice Principles as a self-regulatory tool aimed at school decision-makers to analyze how schools and their partners can build an ethical and responsible relationship.

The methodology combines a quantitative analysis through questionnaires addressed to school group representatives’ management committees (10-15 years old children) and a qualitative approach through document analysis and semi-structured interviews with public-private stakeholders.

Our results lead us to negate hypotheses which speak of school ‘marketization’, despite school’s weaker role in this mediation, and the prevalence of responsible in-school marketing based on best practice principles. They also lead us to support the hypothesis describing ideologically antagonistic positions and to conclude that reproduction and conception of these activities works towards an iconic shaping of schools’ organizational identity and a socio-symbolical integration of the educational community into a hegemonic culture.

Keywords: in-school marketing, corporate responsibility, Working with Schools Best Practice Principles, cultural ‘mcdonaldization’, school ‘marketization’