Crafting Legitimation Projects: An Institutional Analysis of Private Education Businesses

Institutional analyses of education systems typically assume that they secure legitimation through a process of almost unproblematic adoption of standard templates. A qualitative analysis of two forms of private education businesses reveals, however, that they routinely shed some of the most sacred schooling scripts. Despite this, these businesses are flourishing. This analysis finds that education organizations can actively craft a “legitimation project” by engaging in strategic isomorphism and by responding to new pressures in the technical environment, such as consumer demands for individualized education programs. In this view, garnering legitimacy includes multiple avenues for myth-making, coupling, and logic-of-confidence strategies.

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