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Anne West has been awarded a by for a two-year period starting in September 2023. She will work on a major new research project entitled ‘School admissions and school choice in comparative perspective’. School admissions are important as they can affect equality of opportunity, school composition and social cohesion. However, comparative research on school admissions and choice policies is lacking. This project addresses the gap, by analysing admissions and choice policies in France, Germany, Sweden, the UK and the USA and selected policy dimensions in Chile, China, and South Africa. Using historical, legal and policy documents, and academic literature, it analyses school systems established post-World War II; how ideas, policy goals and policies on school choice and admissions developed during the 1980s/early 2000s; consequences of admissions arrangements; and policies designed to enhance mixed intakes. The main outcome of the research project will be a monograph to be published by Routledge.

Since its foundation in 1925, the Leverhulme Trust has provided grants and scholarships for research and education, funding research projects, fellowships, studentships, bursaries and prizes; it operates across all the academic disciplines, the intention being to support talented individuals as they realise their personal vision in research and professional training. Today, it is one of the largest all-subject providers of research funding in the UK, distributing approximately £100 million a year. For more information about the Trust, please visit and follow the Trust on Twitter

Recent publications

Anne West (2023) School Choice (And Diversity) in the UK since 1944: Continuity, Change, Divergence and School Selectivity, Journal of School Choice, 17:1, 15-34, DOI: 

Anne West has a longstanding interest in issues relating to school governance. Her current research builds on earlier work on school admissions. Recent research has focused on reforms to the English education system, academisation and the role played by private bodies (academy trusts) in the provision of education. Recent work has been carried out in collaboration with Dr David Wolfe KC. Other recent research has addressed historical changes in education policy and the role played by government.

Publications

West, A., & Yaghi, B. B. (2024). Academies in England and Charter Schools in the US: Who Is Accountable, to Whom, for What, and with What Consequences? Journal of School Choice, 1–33.

Anne West, David Wolfe & Basma B. Yaghi (2023) GOVERNANCE OF ACADEMIES IN ENGLAND: THE RETURN OF “COMMAND AND CONTROL”?, British Journal of Educational Studies, DOI: 

West, A., Wolfe, D. and Yaghi, B. (2023) How can we create a fairer school system, British Politics and Policy at ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳ Blog. .

West, A. (2022) Education and ignorance in the UK 80 years after Beveridge: The role of government and equality of opportunity, Social Policy and Administration, 56, 2, 299-314.

West, A., Wolfe, D. and Yaghi, B. (2022) Secondary schools (academies and maintained schools) in England: Issues of governance and autonomy, Clare Market Papers, 24, London: ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳.

West, A. and Wolfe, D. (2021) Reforming the school-based education system in England: A common framework, rule book and a new structure for schools, Forum, 63, 1, 20-28. 

West, A. and Wolfe, D. (2019) Academies, autonomy, equality, and democratic accountability: Reforming the fragmented publicly-funded school system in England, London Review of Education, 17, 1, 70–86.

West, A. (2019) La privatisation de l’éducation dans le système scolaire Anglais (Privatisation of education in the English school system), Revue internationale d’éducation de Sèvres, 82 (December).

West, A. (2019) La création des academies en Angleterre : effets attendus, évolution, effets observés et dérives (The creation of academies in England: expected effects, evolution, observed effects and concerns), Revue internationale d’éducation de Sèvres, Colloque 2019: Conditions de réussite des réformes en éducation.

West, A. and Wolfe, D. (2018) Academies, the school system in England and a vision for the future, Clare Market Papers 23, London: ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳.

West, A. and Nikolai, R. (2017) The expansion of “private” schools in England, Sweden and Eastern Germany: A comparative perspective on policy development, regulation, policy goals and ideas, Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis, 19, 5, 452-469.

West, A. and Hind, A. (2016) Secondary school admissions in London 2001 to 2015: Compliance, complexity and control, Clare Market Papers 20, London: ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳.

Education policy research often makes claims about the extent to which privatisation is spreading within school systems worldwide. However, there have been very few attempts to capture this phenomenon across different national contexts in ways that are systematic, quantitative and also reflecting the multidimensional and complex nature of school privatisation as a phenomenon.

In collaboration with Gabriel Gutiérrez (Universidad Diego Portales and Pontifica Universidad Católica, Santiago, Chile), Sonia Exley is currently involved in a project which seeks to develop and apply a new quantitative cross-national measure for capturing school privatisation. Taking inspiration from prior qualitative and conceptual research on the way that school privatisation has both exogenous and endogenous elements, the new measure seeks to operationalise both such elements quantitatively under a series of different dimension headings. Gutiérrez and Exley are using the new measure to explore school landscapes in 64 countries. The research is revealing heterogeneous forms of school privatisation across different countries and also some important changes over time. 

In recent and ongoing research projects Sonia Exley has been seeking to understand in depth changing norms cross-nationally regarding a growing phenomenon of private supplementary tutoring or ‘shadow education’ among school-aged children. Sonia has explored a number of key dynamics which contribute to institutional change and this form of education becoming embedded within societies’ educational landscapes. She has carried out empirical research on the South Korean and English contexts, focusing in particular on the role that government policies of different kinds may play both in facilitating and constraining the rise of shadow education.

Recent papers include:

• Exley, S. (2022) ‘Locked in: understanding the ‘irreversibility’ of powerful private supplementary tutoring markets’, Oxford Review of Education, 48 (1), pp. 78-84.
• Exley, S. (2020) ‘Selective schooling and its relationship to private tutoring: the case of South Korea’, Comparative Education, 56 (2), pp. 218-235.
• Exley, S. (2021) ‘Private education in South Korea – policy lessons from past mistakes?’ in Fleckenstein, T., Park, S., Choi, Y-J. (eds) Social Investment Policies in Europe and East Asia. Bristol: Policy Press.