“It’s a financial decision”: students’ ethical understandings of non-government faith-based schooling in a neoliberal society

ABSTRACT

The expansion of faith-based schools as marketised non-government institutions raises ethical questions, including their appeal to students. This article utilises focus groups with 24 Australian secondary students to identify ethical virtues in their perceptions of non-government faith-based schooling in a neoliberal education market cultivating a conflicting ethics character seeking to respond to both collective and individual goals. Taking the virtue ethics approach, the paper portrays how students perceive faith-based schooling as a financial enterprise contesting the virtues of justice, self-improvement, and courage. Firstly, findings illustrate students’ ethical discomfort with how a push for more socially just outcomes in such schools has, ironically, resulted in greater injustice. Specifically, findings capture a disjuncture between the schools’ emphasis on fee/affordability programmes for greater accessibility and their implications, i.e., the creation of unjust social divides between the “haves” and “have-nots”. Secondly, a mixed picture portrays some students’ virtuous behaviour of self-improvement in a faith-based schooling space seen as a “client”-oriented environment that should be utilised for one’s advantage, while others illustrate how such a system can, in fact, alleviate their need to actively seek to improve their skills and/or social engagement. Correspondingly, some students highlight how being outside the non-government faith-based schooling system “forces” them to strive academically or be socially proactive– regarded as working towards developing their virtue of self-improvement. The paper concludes with the students’ call for a courageous course of action for faith-based schooling, envisioned to promote more affordable and equitable educational opportunities and produce ethical forms of socially just schooling.

KEYWORDS:

• virtue ethics
• faith-based schools
• non-government schools
• private schools
• social justice

[School] affordability is a paramount issue … it’s really difficult financially and it causes a lot of divisiveness which is damaging to the community and to our education … 

Jonathan, Year 12 faith-based school student

Introduction

Western educational markets are experiencing a significant growth in the number of non-government faith-based schools; institutions promoted by neoliberal policies of parent choice, marketisation, and privatisation (e.g., Connell, 2013, Finefter-Rosenbluh, 2022a). Such schools are seen, on the one hand, as providers of exceptional educational opportunities, allowing students to learn in environments that closely reflect their families’ religious and cultural values (Lundy, 2007). On the other hand, they are occasionally viewed as deleterious when it comes to religious, ethnic, and socioeconomic integration (Cantle, 2016) – posing a threat to broader social goals like community cohesion (Allen & West, 2009).

In Australia, non-government schools, which comprise the Catholic and the Independent schooling systems (the latter includes, for example, Islamic, Jewish, and non-denominational Christian schools), account for almost 35% of the nation’s schools, compared with 28% of overall student enrolment in the 1990s (Independent Schools Council Australia, 2017).¹ In 2021, government schools had 65.1% of enrolments, followed by Catholic schools (19.5%) and Independent schools (15.4%) (Australia Bureau of Statistics, 2021). Relatedly, 85% of non-government schools are religiously affiliated and compete for student enrolments with Catholic and government schools.

All told, Australian schools are driven by neoliberal policies foregrounding the consumer student; cultivating ethics that accept its ambivalent and contradictory character, seeking to respond to both collective and individual goals (Oyarzún et al., 2022). Honoured for their familial goods and exceptionalism – as an ethic of individual right, prioritised over equality of opportunities (Brighouse & Swift, 2006) – non-government schools are supported by funding arrangements between the Commonwealth and State/Territory governments which have “now locked in segregated funding discrimination against public schools” (Rorris, 2023, p. 3). By now, Rorris notes, most government schools² are 5%-20% short of minimum required Schooling Resource Standard (SRS)³ funding to deliver essential services, whereas most non-government school systems⁴ are funded over their specified SRS funding level.

Non-government schools then – comprising 12.8% of students from low socio-economic background, as opposed to 31.3% in government schools (Australian Government Productivity Commission, 2023a) – are considered overfunded, mirroring the key role that individualism and choice play in the ethics of Australian schooling. Speaking to the social zeitgeist, Kenway et al. (2017) note, such schools typically reflect intersections between distinctive modalities of power and forms of educational and social inequalities. Concurrently, faith-based schools – being the most common form of Australian non-government schooling – highlight their ethical responsibility to promote social consciousness and notions of communal engagement such as “repair the world” and “love thy neighbour as thyself” for the greater good (e.g., Finefter-Rosenbluh, 2022a; Saada & Gross, 2017).

This article aims to identify Australian students’ ethical understandings of non-government faith-based schooling in such a contested space; taking a virtue ethics approach (Aristotle, c 350 BC/1982) to examine normative arguments about the way students, with their neoliberal subjectivities, view non-government faith-based schooling – considering it is a system that disproportionately enrols advantaged students (Bonner & Shepherd, 2017). The virtue ethics approach, which centralises virtue and practical wisdom in processes of decision-making (Kristjánsson, 2013a; LeBar, 2009), attempts to flesh out a feasible account of morality in post-religious terms, irrespective of personal religious commitments (Kristjánsson, 2013b). Such an approach can help unpack issues raised by a non-government faith-based system via classical ideals like justice and fairness, and the impact they can have on children’s identity. Consequently, we seek to deduce which ethical virtues or articulations are called upon in students’ understandings of contemporary Australian non-government faith-based schooling, given the broader neoliberal context in which such schools are positioned (see also, Finefter-Rosenbluh, 2022b). In pursuit of this aim, we ask the following questions:

1. Which ethical virtues are present in Australian students’ perceptions of non-government faith-based schooling?

2. What are the specific articulations of these ethical virtues in a neoliberal education market cultivating an ambivalent and contradictory ethics character seeking to respond to both collective and individual goals?

In what follows, we provide a brief overview of the role of faith-based schooling in shaping students’ identity and learning. We locate the study within a broad human rights framework calling on educational settings to respect children’s cultural identity, language, and values. Next, we position faith-based schooling within a logic of competition; illuminating the theoretical approach of virtue ethics which was employed to dissect the ethical virtues reflected in students’ perceptions of faith-based schooling in a neoliberal society. We then outline the study’s methods, ethical deliberations, data collection and analysis, subsequently featuring its findings. The latter portray students’ perceptions of the non-government faith-based schooling system as a financial enterprise that challenges the virtues of justice, self-improvement, and courage. We conclude by noting the study’s limitations and ethical directions for novel policy developments envisioned to provide more equitable educational opportunities.

Faith-based schooling: a portrayal of social, educational, and cultural values

The role of faith-based schooling in shaping children’s identity and learning is well discussed in the literature (e.g., Kong, 2005), acknowledging how “Education of the child shall be directed to … the development of respect for the child’s parents, his or her own cultural identity, language, and values” (Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989, Article 29(1)). According to Finke (2004), faith-based schools educate children within a particular “core ideology” (p. 20), centralising faith and home culture in the classroom. The benefits of such culturally oriented teaching lie in its potential to provide children with a sense of belonging, confidence, and emotional security (Sikkink, 2012) and support their academic achievements (Jeynes, 2002).

Faith-based schools, which can offer parents an educational environment that reinforces their familial values and recognises parental rights (Lundy, 2007), can also provide exposure to teacher diversity and support to students experiencing identity conflicts. Recent studies, for example, show how the employment of religiously diverse teaching staff in such schools can fulfil students’ right to an adaptable education, motivating them to engage in social perspective taking and interact with multiple spheres of cultural affiliations. Teacher diversity provides fundamental support to those students who feel that their religious identity diverges from the schools’ core ideology (Finefter-Rosenbluh & Perry-Hazan, 2018; Perry-Hazan et al., 2021). Moreover, faith-based schools can serve social goals of pluralism and tolerance, honouring communal and personal values which shape students’ socio-educational journeys (Finefter–Rosenbluh & Court, 2014). In his review of Britain’s faith community schooling, Wright (2003) notes how social cohesion could be achieved if minority faith groups were genuinely supported in their search to preserve communal identities and establish a sense of social security. A mixed economy of local community and faith-based schools, he argues, could help tackle the perils of a majority population’s neo-colonial imposition on minority religious communities.

Nonetheless, some scholars stress the limitations of faith-based schooling, highlighting how culturally homogenous schools can screen out significant bodies of knowledge to influence community cohesion (Allen & West, 2011) and undermine the ability of children to choose between different life paths (see MacMullen, 2007). Such concerns drive policies to promote more student exposure to diversity and changes in pedagogy and curricula content, as well as regulating admission policies to ensure a more heterogeneous student body (e.g., Merry, 2005). In the UK, for instance, policymakers proposed that up to 25% of places in new faith-based schools be open to families of different or of no religion at all, in accordance with local demand (Dwyer & Parutis, 2013).

Privatisation, marketisation, and funding

Like other western nations constitutionally committed to secularism (e.g., the US), Australia has sought to introduce a wide range of faith-based approaches in each of its states/territories; actively providing much federal government funding to non-government schools. Receiving public criticism for substantial government funding – with the latter increased twice as much as government schools in a decade (Beazley & Cassidy, 2023) – Australian non-government schools are regarded as overfunded institutions, with their funding supplemented by both state/territory government and private incomes (e.g., donations, parent fees). Indeed, the Commonwealth government provides at least 80% of each non-government school’s SRS compared to 20% of each government school’s SRS (Rorris, 2023). In 2021 the gross income of government schools through Commonwealth government recurrent funding was 21%, compared to Catholic schools – 61% – and independent schools – 38% (ACARA, 2021a). Essentially, non-government schools have been overfunded by approximately $1 billion during the 2020-2023 period, leaving public schools underfunded and with a cumulative shortfall of $19 billion in required funding to attain the mandated SRS. In the most populous state of New South Wales for example, non-government schools are overfunded by $367 million while in Victoria they are overfunded by $118 million and in Queensland by $180 million (Rorris, 2023).

This ethically questionable funding scheme positions Australia in the bottom third for educational equity (UNICEF, 2018), raising major questions about the nation’s commitment to promote equitable schooling for all (Australian Government Productivity Commission, 2023b). Whereas a country’s rank for educational inequalities can change between primary and secondary schools, Australia, alongside Bulgaria, Israel, Malta, New Zealand, and Slovakia, is in the bottom third of most unequal nations in both sectors (UNICEF, 2018). These conditions prompt government schools to generate extra funding, in the main through “voluntary” parental levies. This, in turn, exacerbates existing inequalities within government school systems given some communities have a greater capacity to pay than others (Thompson et al., 2019). For non-government schools, despite significant increases in federal government funding (Ore, 2022), their fees are steadily increasing. Since the 1980s there has been a real fee growth in both the Catholic and the Independent sectors, with tuition fees considerably varying– mostly ranging from $20,000 to $43,000 for a Year 12 student (Watson & Ryan, 2010). School fees differ depending on the year level of the student, when typically, Years 11 and 12 are the most expensive. On average, Catholic fees per student are lower than those for independent schools, with the exception of elite Catholic schools (ACARA, 2021b; Watson & Ryan, 2010).

Increasingly shaped by market values of choice and “buy education”, Australia’s non-government faith-based schools are viewed by governments as providing a more responsive market; premised on neoliberal values of competition that foregrounds students and their families as mobile consumers– a desirable practice of choice for class mobility (Finefter-Rosenbluh, 2022a; Rizvi & Lingard, 2010). In this economically contested space, such schools may thrive over secular government schools, as they are perceived as more responsive to the competitiveness and diverse needs demanded of education systems.⁵ They might be more attuned to student-as-“client” demands – essentially driven by income rather than by particular needs (Peston, 2018; see also, Finefter-Rosenbluh, 2022b); involving, as such, an adaptation to a new moral reasoning “within the logic of competition” (Ball & Olmedo, 2013, p. 88).

Virtue ethics

This paper seeks to extend our understanding of students as ethical subjects in a neoliberal competitive education market. To do so, the paper applies a virtue ethics approach, namely, an Aristotelian approach (1962) that foregrounds considerations of one’s values, what constitutes human wellbeing and the capacity to flourish. The approach stresses that individuals’ dispositions or virtues are indistinguishably connected to their experiences and knowledge – generating a context that combines the moral and the intellectual (Campbell, 2013). In this approach – which focuses on virtues and practical wisdom (“phronesis”) – ethics refer to character traits that make one a “good person”.

Conversely, a virtue is a character trait manifested in habitual actions that are considered socially desirable and worthy; including traits like courage, compassion, justice, benevolence, honesty, self-control, self-improvement, generosity, righteousness, truthfulness, and loyalty (e.g., Carr, 2011; Colnerud & Rosander, 2009) – virtues envisioned to uphold collective flourishing. Virtue ethics, in this respect, emphasises the ethical ideal or practical wisdom of one’s capacity to make the “right” decision at any given time, recognising that notions of what constitutes the right decision are highly contested (Kristjánsson, 2013a). The approach appropriates the development of virtue as a process of skill acquisition. It recognises how being morally good includes exercising virtues (to some degree) or obtaining qualities that take experience and practice to acquire, therefore, we cannot assume that one is virtuous to begin with. To possess a virtue means to be reliable in displaying its related behaviours (Stichter, 2018). Contrasting with approaches that highlight duties or rules (deontology) or the consequences of actions (utilitarianism) (Statman, 1997), virtue ethics illustrates how key character traits shape and are shaped by the increasingly marketised nature of contemporary schooling.

Focusing on students who had experienced or are familiar with faith-based schooling, this study seeks to identify which ethical virtues are present in their perceptions of such a growing system in Australia’s quasi education market. It is through the “textural description” (Creswell, 2013, p. 80) and the ethical interpretation of perspectives – as the participants make different meanings of what occurs in faith-based schooling and related educational processes (Merriam & Grenier, 2019) – that we aim to contextualise the ethical virtues reflected in students’ perceptions of non-government faith-based schools in a neoliberal society. We suggest that such neoliberal spaces encompass complex technologies of governance and economic power illuminating issues of privileged education; requiring social agents to navigate deep-seated scepticism about these educational institutions’ ethical value.

Method

This study is part of, and draws from, a larger mixed-method research project seeking to examine a conversation in a local Jewish community about the ethics of faith-based schooling in a neoliberal policy-driven space. After obtaining an Institutional Review Board ethical approval (ID 29240), the large-scale study, which took place from July to December 2021, aimed at addressing the critical challenges faced by faith-based schools as privileged institutions in their provision of ethical education.

The methodological process of the project involved interviewing and conducting focus groups with 84 stakeholder participants– including principals and presidents of Jewish, faith-based school boards/councils, parents, students and teachers, as well as government school Jewish students and parents of students in government or non-government-non-faith-based schools located in one Australian state.⁶ In addition to the interviews and the focus groups, a short survey was designed to capture the faith-based schooling perspectives among a broader range of Jewish community members. Several community forums were organised by the participating Jewish schools and other community organisations. In some cases, a link to the survey was emailed to attendees post-events. The survey was also distributed via the research project’s website, the Jewish community’s Facebook groups and in follow-up/thank you emails to focus group participants. Emails were also sent to personal contacts, as part of the methodological snowballing approach.

This paper draws upon five focus groups with 24 secondary school Jewish students: four focus groups with students from four different Jewish faith-based schools and one focus group with students from one government school. The participants, who received a AUD$30 gift certificate for their participation, defined themselves as either secular, conservative or modern-orthodox Jews, ranging from embracing their Jewish cultural identity without adopting a religiously observant way of life to adopting, to an extent, an observant way of life (Hirsch, 2019). The government school is known for having a large Jewish student population, and the four Jewish faith-based schools were characterised by a religious habitus incorporating religious observance into their day-to-day practices, including different prayers. While these four schools – either modern-Orthodox or Conservative – welcome students from a variety of Jewish backgrounds, they expect students to follow their specified and tacit cultural-religious rules. Although no official data disclosed the students’ religiosity, most families who choose these schools were likely to identify with the school’s ethos, given the variety of options available for Jewish schooling in an area which contains thriving Jewish communities. The schools, classified as independent, are entitled to considerable autonomy in managing their religious customs and forms of worship.

To preserve anonymity, the Year 11 or Year 12 participating students were provided with pseudonyms, and their schools’ names were not identified. Recognising how Australian faith-based schools are increasingly shaped by market values (Finefter-Rosenbluh, 2022a), and acknowledging the dearth of literature on the ethics of faith-based schooling, let alone in such contexts, we were particularly interested in exploring the ethical aspects that students consider when discussing such schools in Australia’s increasingly marketised education space. The focus groups lasted an hour and took place on Zoom due to the pandemic. Interviewers took notes during the focus groups which were digitally recorded and transcribed by the platform. To ensure clarity and accuracy, focus group transcripts were double checked by an independent research assistant and compared with notes taken by interviewers during the focus group process.

In their focus groups, students were presented with open-ended questions, including their experiences with forms of faith-based education; whether they would recommend their peers to enrol in a faith-based school and why; and the kind of values they think their school promotes and how. Students were also asked questions about how faith-based and government schools responded to schooling fees, whether fee/financial issues were discussed among students, and in what way the costs of such schooling affected them and/or their family and friends, if at all. Several students were also contacted for further clarification. The focus groups were dissected using thematic analysis which included several rounds of categorisation (Merriam & Tisdell, 2015). To ensure reliability, each of the authors reviewed the focus group transcriptions and related written notes independently and recorded their ideas for a coding scheme. Disagreements were resolved by discussion to reach a consensus.

Findings

Findings reveal students’ complex perceptions of non-government faith-based schooling, capturing it as a financial enterprise contesting the virtues of justice, self-improvement, and courage, as described below.

The virtue of justice

Students illustrated how the faith-based schools’ emphasis on finance and issues of affordability contest core values of justice. They highlighted their ethical discomfort with common practices of fee relief/subsidy programmes in the schools, viewing these as a double-edged sword of (in)justice. They observed how fee relief/subsidy practices which on the face of it are a just practice, also unwittingly foreground the injustice of extremely high fees that were out of the reach of most families. Such families were therefore either “forced” to educate their children elsewhere, take part in such fee relief programmes – feeling vulnerably visible in the community – or leave the school. This paradoxical situation led to several students voicing a sense of shame, illustrating how the virtue of justice was contested by the implications of such programmes. As two of the faith-based school students observed:

I know there’s financial aid at the school and it’s very common and it could be like a third of students receive some sort of financial aid … I could be wrong, but it’s a very, very high percentage of kids because the fees are astronomically high in the first place, which makes you feel very uncomfortable … and people talk about people … what’s the point of all of this?

We all know that everyone comes from a different socio-economic background … and so we have those conversations on how it’s expensive and how not everyone can afford it … it’s unpleasant because it becomes the focus … some people come in for only Year 10, 11 and even 12 because they’re saving up from Prep to Year 9 … it’s messed up.

Furthermore, the faith-based school students probed the assistance programmes in place to provide fee relief and subsidies to families, including scholarships awarded on financial need rather than academic merit. Specifically, they stressed their belief in the tireless work of educational leaders to secure donations and funding to ensure the participation of interested children in their schools, but reflected on the irony of all of this, i.e., that consumeristic discourses around school fees had become dominant in the core ideals of these schools, predominantly viewed as unaffordable financial enterprises, hindering the development of virtues of justice in the process. The students also raised concerns that the good intentions of current financial assessment processes – envisioned to promote ideas of just education – had untoward and unjust implications for those on the receiving end. They explained that money, fees, and socioeconomic status were largely taboo topics among their peers; highlighting their ethical unease with how these issues were invariably part of their socio-ethical consciousness and the institutions’ practices – creating an obvious, though unspoken social divide, between the “haves” (who do not need to access fee relief) and “have-nots” (who are forced to do so). As Jonny, a faith-based school student, described:

People often try to hide that they struggle and can’t afford this kind of school … and you have friends who leave the school because it’s too expensive … it’s unfair … [we do have] a telethon each year, where we call families to get them to donate, to help our friends get through … but I’ve seen how some people can’t afford to get on the school bus … and a lot of people don’t want to share that because they’re ashamed … 

Portraying similar ethical concerns of (in)justice, Laila and David, two faith-based school students, also noted how their schools’ focus on financial affordability paradoxically compounded unjust academic, psychological, and social divides:

It’s not shameful to receive a bursary, but people hold it kind of really close to them and don’t speak about it because it’s so sensitive … there’s this cultural taboo and you also have these really, really wealthy families going to the school and their names are on buildings and it’s sometimes really confronting to be in an environment where you know people have money and they come from money but that’s the culture … 

We have a joke in my class that each class ends up being about $25,000 … affordability is definitely a [common] topic that even though we make brash jokes and things like that, we all take it very seriously … it makes us feel very uncomfortable.

Relatedly, some faith-based students illustrated an unsettled virtue of justice, stressing their ethical discomfort with what they believe to be a difference in teacher pay and exclusionary benefits to their schools compared to government schools – recognising how that can unjustly affect students’ experiences and life paths. However, in so doing, they also made questionable generalisations that undercut the virtue of justice and perpetuate a sense of exceptionalism. For instance, Owen argued:

Private school teachers in general, I think, are more inclined to work harder because their pay is higher and that’s because of the school fees, like it’s not a government funded school … and our teachers don’t teach like 400 students, they teach like one class, so I feel teachers will try harder at our school than in a government school … they’re kind of aware that the students will go down their path … I’m not sure how fair it is but that’s the reality.

Government school students also lamented how faith-based schools, which ostensibly promote values of justice, could in fact exacerbate unjust processes. Capturing faith-based schooling as a financial enterprise, Sean and Ben justified their choice of government schooling as a social-ethical exercise for collective good, which can be regarded as a virtue of justice:

I know people who are on these [payment] programs … there’s a bit of shame to it because some of these schools are lucrative … certain families are coming over to pick up their kids in these really expensive cars … and then, if you have an average family it could be shameful … this affordability thing is a kept-down topic, but everyone is aware that it exists and it’s a big part of these schools’ environment … I would not invest in it when public schools provide a very good education.

It can be a bit intimidating if you’re on a payment plan when others are very wealthy, it’d be difficult … like, in a state school, money is not often discussed but I’ve heard it’s the focus in these schools … I’m not sure how that works out with their religious values or why that would work for me … 

Faith-based schooling as a manifestation of neoliberal education then, encapsulates for the students an exclusionary market-driven decision, buying a perceived advantage or educational exceptionalism at the expense of others. As Elijah, another government school student contended, faith-based schooling is a “financial decision” within an ethically questionable culture that was rejected by him as “toxic” and “gross” – highlighting the virtue of justice:

It’s a financial decision … yes, it’s about learning but it’s mostly the train of thought of whether it’s really worth it … I don’t go to such a school because of costs and the toxic culture it involves … they’re quite substantially high … I’m not a fan of this culture. Just imagine that it’s all about money … it creates big disparities, people always talk about money, about peoples’ houses, cars, things like that … you become spoiled, too privileged, entitled … you see many of these kids … they think they’re better than everyone else … it’s gross.

The virtue of self-improvement

Positioning faith-based schooling as a financial enterprise, the students portrayed a mixed picture of the way it contests the development of the virtue of self-improvement. Some faith-based students, on the one hand, illuminated their striving to do better – or their virtuous behaviour of self-improvement – in a seemingly privileged, “customer”-oriented climate. As Ryan explained:

Paying so much money to attend such a good school, it’s kind of a waste of money and resources if you’re not utilising that, like, if you’re not taking advantage of your advantage and do the best you can to succeed.

Likewise, David observed, “loads of kids in Year 12 will have a bunch of tutors and they’ll be aiming to get really high ATARs⁷ … I think that this aspect of excellence is different [than in government schools] but also Judaism-wise.” Similarly, Shira mentioned, “a lot of us are pressured to focus on academics and do our best in this school,” while Ruby commented, “this school is recognised as a top school, [so] I’m definitely leaning more towards the academics side behind it … the Jewish bit is just an advantage.” Continuing this thread, Maya determined:

I’ve noticed that a lot of students at my school feel very guilty if they get a bad mark, which I think relates to how expensive it is and the expectations people have of us and that we have of ourselves to be better.

On the other hand, some faith-based students admitted not being motivated to put effort into improving their skills in a space focused on providing exclusive learning experiences. As Sarah explained, “it’s not encouraging being in a class with only five other people and some of them might not engage and no one tells them anything … maybe a greater collaboration will add to my learning experience and motivation.” Other faith-based students indicated how being in a seemingly privileged school meant they did not feel the need to actively improve their social understanding and engagement. As Lilly, Ron, and Miri rationalised:

We don’t really know other ideologies, including other Jewish ideologies, and other kinds of approaches to life in general … we’re different from a social aspect point of view … there’s a wide range of identities and approaches we don’t know and don’t really look to engage with because we don’t really have to … 

There’s lots of subtle things that we take for granted, maybe unlike Jewish kids in non-Jewish schools who made me realise that we have a very different outlook on things … for me, religion, for example, is part of our lives … but I reckon other people are more interested and invested in it, like, want to learn more and do more about it because it’s all new to them … 

From primary school to year nine or twelve you’ve been with the same people … so from a social perspective you’re less aware of things outside school … to the extent that if we merged all Jewish schools, it would create a big social challenge for us [and] add stress … we could be quite groupie.

From their perspective, the government school students also portrayed a complex picture, illustrating how being outside non-government faith-based schools somewhat forced them to put more effort into doing better academically, which could be regarded as developing their ethical virtue of self-improvement. They noted how the advantageous position of non-government school students on state table leagues could motivate them, as government school students, to improve their skills. As Elijah explained, “one of the biggest influences on your ATAR is your school rank … and private schools have higher grades because they’re more selective, so we need to really up our game because they have a huge advantage on us.”

In terms of social engagement, other government students commented on how they were more conscious of diverse social issues; inspiring them to self-improve, including strengthening their connection to faith-based-oriented-learning values that students in faith-based schools “take for granted.” As Adam argued, “the government-school environment makes you more proactive, like more conscious of issues that kids in private schools don’t know or take for granted … you’re more ready to socialise and make new friendships and changes.” Conversely, Danielle and Sean contended that students in faith-based schools were “spoon-fed” values, involving little or no personal work or self-reflection – incompatible with the virtue of self-improvement. They noted that being in a government school’s diverse environment meant they needed to be more critical or proactive, compatible with the virtue of self-improvement:

My cousins went through the Jewish school system … [and] it really gets to a point where they’ve been spoon-fed Judaism for their entire lives and haven’t had to be socially critical or religiously proactive like us … so some of them have gotten lost or felt lost about their identity or what they want to do afterwards.

I have many friends in Jewish schools … and I know … if you want to improve your knowledge about Judaism then it gets to a Year 12 stage … you have to do religion as a subject … but one of those subjects is politics and that’s not what I would classify as Jewish education because that’s offered up at my school too … I know a lot of kids in Jewish schools who actually negate this or Jewish subjects and values … so it’s not like they really want to improve their knowledge or learn about Judaism and what it actually means … 

The virtue of courage

The students argued for the importance of faith-based schooling initiating a courageous course of action that would promote more affordable and equitable educational opportunities for the community and produce ethical forms of socially just schooling. Such action, they stressed, should aim to reduce financial costs and provide fair and diverse education choices. For instance, several students praised successful mergers of faith-based schools overseas, highlighting the need for greater consideration of and financial investment in education structures for students outside the non-government faith-based schooling space. Highlighting the education system’s ability to initiate such a social action, they suggested extending the faith-based-non-government-schooling conversation to faith-based youth movements and other organisations that could offer more informal and equitable educational provisions. In so doing, they illustrated their virtue of courage; calling for bold actions that canvass novel opportunities that could not only help students meet and socialise with more diverse groups of students but might also “fix” the current social fragmentation of the Australian community, perpetuated by neoliberal principles of marketisation and privatisation.

According to Ben, a government school student, all students should have the “ability to access cultural education” which does not necessarily have to take the formal faith-based schooling approach but can have a more secular and “atheist one” that “suits many students.” He called faith-based schools, communities, and philanthropists to “fix the situation” and establish a separate funding entity which would provide different faith-based-oriented options for all community members; highlighting his own determination to be part of such an action or his moral quality for which he has predisposition – the virtue of courage. Since such an independent entity would be separated from the schools’ authorities, students would not be stigmatised within their school communities for applying for fee relief.

Similarly, Zach, a faith-based school student, noted how a separate funding initiative could “basically involve, in a factorial sort of philanthropic endeavour where sort of the Jewish community builds a fund for people who want to go to Jewish schools, and you could apply for it.” Joel, a faith-based school student, also remarked on how issues of school unaffordability demonstrated the need to allocate, as a community, “more funding to education programmes in Australia.” For him, it was important to be part of a faith-based schooling system that took courageous social action promoting “more ownership on education” – sharing and distributing more resources – which could benefit society. As he explained:

I feel like not enough money is allocated towards the education sector within the economy … that could be improved and our schools can maybe help with that … this solution takes courage and more ownership … for the sake of education and society … it can also help with things like fee assistance and [government school] staff pay … that kind of builds up everything within the future … putting more money towards education will create more money within the future, if that makes sense … 

Likewise, Jonathan, Murray and David, faith-based students, called for more collaboration between faith-based schools – highlighting the need for such schools to be less fearful of change – to ensure more affordable and equitable educational opportunities for all community members. Such collaboration could include a combination of four or three faith-based schools into one or two schools. These mergers could potentially help to lower the high/unaffordable fees and could occur at any year level, with the most viable year levels being at the start of primary or secondary school. As Murray explained, this course of action “takes courage but it will make things cheaper for everyone, it has a lot of potential, even in the short term.” Equally, Jonathan stated how merging some faith-based schools could create a more efficient system, offering reduced costs to make a positive impact on affordability. As he stressed, he would like to be part of a confident faith-based schooling system that serves as a social exemplar of schools that “come together to fundraise and avoid things like charging students 20 cents for a fork and eight dollars for a tuna sandwich” in a shared effort to secure “affordable education” in a society increasingly shaped by market values. These calls for bold initiatives reflected the students’ complex virtue of courage, a sign of moral awareness considering collective responsibilities and individual good in (re)establishing schools as more inclusive institutions.

Discussion

Acknowledging educational institutions as social systems envisioned to sustain an ethical environment where individuals develop and act as moral agents (e.g., Finefter-Rosenbluh, 2022a, 2022b; Haydon, 2004; Sofyan et al., 2023), this paper employs the virtue ethics approach to examine which ethical virtues are present in Australian students’ perceptions of non-government faith-based schooling in a neoliberal society. Such schooling cultivates an ambivalent and contradictory ethics character seeking to respond to both collective and individual goals; ethically responsible to develop individuals’ social consciousness (Cross et al., 2018) while upholding neoliberal subjectivities, or as Brown (2015) notes, embodying the “economization of the subjects” (p. 33). The latter illuminates market values, such as competition and self-investment, which can eclipse affective fundamentals of ethical relationality and sociality (e.g., Finefter-Rosenbluh, 2022c).

The findings of this study illustrate students’ viewing of the non-government faith-based schooling system as a financial enterprise contesting the virtues of justice, self-improvement, and courage. Firstly, the increasing financial focus of such schools appears to challenge students’ core values of justice. The juxtaposition of emergent consumeristic discourses with the growing emphasis on fee/affordability programmes – seemingly becoming dominant in the underlying ideals of faith-based schooling – is paradoxically creating alarming social divides between the “haves” and “have-nots”. In turn, some students, such as scholarship holders, experience a form of shame which challenges the virtue of justice. The engendered sense of shame concurs with literature on disadvantage and the way it is perpetuated through education policy; illuminating complexities of inequality, social exclusion, and relationality in shaping schooling subjectivities (e.g., Cuervo & Wyn, 2012; Reay, 2001). Moensted (2022), for example, notes how Australian disadvantaged students face major challenges as a result of their marginalisation. These challenges are frequently reinforced in their encounters with the educational system; illuminating forms of material segregation requiring students to navigate exclusionary social relations on a daily basis (Camilleri-Cassar, 2013).

Findings also demonstrate the students’ perceived difference in faith-based/non-government and government schoolteachers’ pay and the ethical discomfort it raises for them – recognising that such gaps could have unjust effects on students’ life paths. Such perceptions correspond with widespread public concerns over Australian government schoolteachers being “poached” by the non-government school sector, who are able to offer “better salaries … tens of thousands of dollars higher than what the state system can offer most teachers”; highlighting government school principals’ frustration that the non-government sector’s receiving “significant government funding, on top of their student fees, enabled them to pay higher wages to attract teachers” (Marchant, 2023). Moreover, Marchant highlights, the government sector currently faces “an unprecedented teacher shortage” with more senior staff “becoming burnt out” from teaching bigger classes while mentoring inexperienced graduate teachers, compromising students’ learning experiences in the process. In the current study, some government school students justified their schooling choice as a social exercise for collective good, which could be regarded as a virtue of justice; ethically rejecting the value-for-money-culture seen as “toxic” in non-government schools. Relatedly, several faith-based school students made questionable generalisations of government schooling, illuminating an ethically intricate sense of non-government educational exceptionalism. The latter is a qualifying marker of “special status” – entrenched in a “distinctive policy space in which educational procedures, performances, and practices are inhabited” (Jules, 2015, p. 203). These complex notions of exceptionalism raise critical and socially urgent questions around the ethics of privilege and exclusionary schooling; requiring the unpacking of both the range and the intricacy of ethical virtues in neoliberal education spaces, which this paper begins to discuss.

Secondly, viewing faith-based schooling as a financial enterprise appeared to contest the development of the students’ virtue of self-improvement. Some faith-based students illustrated their striving to do better academically, illuminating virtuous behaviour of self-improvement in an exclusionary education space. Such sociality of performativity highlights the view of schools as bearers of variables associated with student outcomes in a performative competitive education market (Connell, 2013). Other faith-based students however, mentioned how being in an exclusive learning environment can alleviate the need to actively seek to improve their academic skills or social engagement. Such perceptions fit studies suggesting non-government schooling can add up to eight points to a student’s ATAR (Marks, 2015). With the latter impacted by state scaling and moderation processes,⁸ some studies highlight how, when controlling for students’ sociodemographic characteristics, achievement advantages are eliminated (e.g., Pianta & Ansari, 2018). On their part, government school students shared how, being outside the non-government faith-based schooling system forced them to strive academically and be socially proactive, which could be regarded as working towards developing their virtue of self-improvement.

Thirdly, the students called for a bold course of action working towards crafting more affordable and equitable pathways within their community; highlighting their complex moral awareness for which they have a predisposition – the virtue of courage. Such a courageous act envisions active canvassing of socially-just initiatives and the development of a range of affordable and non-stigmatising faith-based education opportunities in a society increasingly shaped by ethically conflicting consumeristic models.

Findings then, highlight the potential role of faith-based institutions in mobilising forms of social support (Taylor & Cuthbert, 2019); illustrating the contribution of virtue ethics to understanding education contexts (see also Wilson, 2014). Challenging the increased reliance on marketised education to achieve socially just schooling (e.g., Härmä, 2011), they capture a call to move beyond notions of the student (and their parents/caregivers) as a neoliberal consumer and produce a novel ethical vision of more just faith-based non-government schooling. According to virtue ethics, individuals are expected to exercise the moral qualities for which they have predispositions, or the virtues which are seen as essential to good life (LeBar, 2009). For Solomon (2008), the inherent value of a virtuous life extends to ethical behaviour, considering Adam Smith’s observation that people’s sympathy for others leads them to behave in socially responsible ways. This study shows the critical role of ethical virtues in students’ perceptions of a growing non-government faith-based educational economy market. It portrays how classical virtues such as justice, self-improvement, and courage are still experienced as collective ideals in an ethically conflicted society.

Certainly, the students’ ethical understandings of such schooling echo tensions between their search for personal identity and benefit, moral conduct, and contemporary forms of social responsibility (Newman & Tonkens, 2011). According to Stichter (2022), such disconnection between one’s identity (e.g., religious) and conduct can result in attempts to reinforce the former as morally good at the expense of virtuous behaviour that regards self-improvement. In this study, the students’ ethical ambivalence towards the paradoxical socio-educational impacts of non-government faith-based schooling (e.g., making questionable generalisations; not necessarily seeking to improve skills and social engagements) requires closer attention to the way in which economic discourses of value exchange shape a system’s ethical environment (see also, Finefter-Rosenbluh, 2022a, 2022b; Finefter-Rosenbluh & Levinson, 2015; Levinson & Finefter-Rosenbluh, 2016). The study sheds light on students’ ethical hesitance when navigating schooling against socio-economically determined expectations manifesting as virtues. Positioning the non-government faith-based schooling system as a financial enterprise highly responsive to student-as-“customer” demands fundamentally driven by income (Peston, 2018), the students called for and some highlighted the willingness to be part of a courageous action. Such an action challenges exclusionary educational ideals within a moral logic of competition (Ball & Olmedo, 2013); seeking to pave more affordable and equitable pathways in the faith-based, non-government schooling community.

Limitations

There are two key limitations to this study. First, it draws on 24 students – a small sample which does not represent all students’ views from the Jewish faith-based schooling system, limiting us in drawing generalised conclusions or those which are transferable to other contexts (Patton, 2002). Given the students were from middle- and upper-class backgrounds, it might be impossible to understand, for example, the range of ethical virtues existent in non-government-non-faith-based schools with large populations of students from working-class backgrounds. Nevertheless, the paper provides insight into the ethical virtues present in students’ perceptions of a faith-based educational system characterised by common neoliberal ideals seen in other nations (e.g., Adonis, 2012). As such, it can be instrumental (Stake, 2005) in expanding our knowledge of the discursive politicised intersections between ethical notions and consumer-driven praxis rooted in neoliberal education markets promoting both individual and common goods (Brown, 2015). Further research could explore similar aspects in other faith-based communities with more non-government schools, including schools with more diverse socio-economic backgrounds.

Second, the collected data includes focus groups with students from four faith-based schools and one focus group with government school students in one Australian state. While such data could reflect a disproportionate picture of students’ ethical understandings of faith-based schooling, all the participants are part of the same faith-based community who declared their close acquaintance with such schooling and commitment to its cultural identity. In fact, the study used thematic analysis, rather than a comparative case study approach, as it did not identify substantial contextual disparities between the experiences of students from different schools.

Conclusion

Supplementing literature on education policy, educational ethics, faith-based and non-government schools, this study shines a light on the complexity of ethical virtues and related contestations in a neoliberal education market. By bringing students’ ethical articulations into relation with contemporary education policies, the paper identifies and positions the virtues of justice, self-improvement, and courage as guiding foundations for action in an ethically intricate neoliberal education space seeking to respond to both collective and individual goals. In doing so, the study portrays the role that non-government schools – as social choreographers par excellence (Kenway et al., 2017) – can play in mobilising forms of social support. Provoking further conversations around schooling, ethics, and policy, the paper provides directions for initiatives seeking to respond to shared and distinctive needs; outlining ethical facets to bear on community members’ conceptions of socially just education. The study portrays the intricacy of ethical virtues in a neoliberal society facing the need to reassess its schooling arrangements; illuminating the urgency of alternative governance forms which are more attuned to students’ ethical, educational, and social needs.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank all the students who generously gave of their time and openly shared with us their experiences, concerns, and insights. We are also grateful to Alan Schwartz AM for providing us with the opportunity to work on this important and visionary project. The funding from the Trawalla Foundation, the Loti and Victor Smorgon Family Foundation, and the Besen Family Foundation enabled us to undertake this project, and we thank them for their support and confidence in us. We would also like to thank Rebecca Forgasz, Dashiel Lawrence, and Kahryn Garnier for their valuable support with this project. We also thank the editor and reviewers for their valuable suggestions.

Additional information

Funding

Trawalla Foundation, the Loti and Victor Smorgon Family Foundation, and the Besen Family Foundation – 343091610.

Notes

1 Unlike the government schooling sector and similar to Catholic schools, Independent schools are permitted to select which students they wish to enrol and can turn away students. The growth of Australia’s non-government schools since the 1980s, comprising both Catholic and Independent schools, has been aided and abetted by successive federal government policies, generous government funding, and the application of neoliberal tenets of choice and competition. The marketplace of school choice has increasingly advantaged Independent and Catholic schools in terms of student enrolments to the detriment of government schools (Bonner & Shepherd, 2017).

2 Except for in the Australian Capital Territory.

3 The Schooling Resource Standard (SRS) is an estimate of how much total public funding a school needs to meet its students’ educational minimal needs. According to Rorris (2023), it is ‘not a desirable level of funding that would give schools an ideal pool of resources to discharge their teaching and learning obligations towards children,’ rather, it is “the minimum funding required so that schools can have at least 80% of their students achieving learning outcomes above the national minimum standard” (in standardised tests) (p. 2). The SRS base amount is calculated by multiplying the number of students enrolled at the school for the year by the SRS funding amount for the school for the year. For most non-government schools, the SRS base amount is reduced by the school’s Capacity to Contribute (CTC) (Australian Government Department of Education, 2023).

4 Except in the Northern Territory.

5 Like some other Western educational markets (e.g., the US), Australia is experiencing a significant growth in the number of its faith-based, non-government schools. While government schools’ enrolment accounted for 72% in the 1990s it has declined to 65% in 2018. Independent, non-government schools, which are 85% religiously affiliated, account for almost 35% of the nation’s schools, compared with 28% of overall student enrolment in the 1990s (Independent Schools Council Australia, 2017).

6 To remain unnamed to protect the participating Jewish schools, given their small number in Australia which could make them identifiable.

7 The Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR) is an estimate of the percentage of the population that one outperformed, namely, if one received an ATAR of 90, they performed better than 90% of students that year. The scaling process considers how competitive a subject is, with each student being compared to the other students at the same school doing the same subject (e.g., Universities Admission Centre, 2023).

8 While the method of calculating the ATAR varies across states and territories, it involves scaling and moderation processes considering both school evaluation marks and final external exam marks (see for example, the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority, 2023). The higher one’s school’s average, the more favourable the process might be to their school-- to be considered in a student’s ATAR.