Conference Agenda

In the education field, philanthropy is closely related to privatisation through education policy (Ball, 2012), a third form that follows the more widely discussed privatisation of education, such as through the privatisation of supply, and privatisation in education, which consists of bringing managerial practices from the private sector (Ball & Youdell, 2008). While giving, as such, is not novel to most educational systems, what authors have referred to as a ‘new’ philanthropy (Ball & Junemann, 2012; Olmedo, 2014) is the existence of structural and institutional factors that have facilitated the participation of private actors in shaping school policy and practice. To date, research in education has mainly focused on examining the role of ‘big donors’ and large organisations in the policy landscape, their connections, and impact in policymaking (Erfurth & Ridge, 2021; Srivastava & Oh, 2012). However, donations by lesser-known non-state actors and less voluminous, sporadic contributions are comparatively less examined, as noted by (Hogan & Williamson, 2023).

Beyond the educational field, recent research in the nonprofit and voluntary sector has emphasised the importance of examining how patterns of giving emerge, stabilise, and change over time (Kallman, 2017). From this perspective, philanthropic donations can be understood as both financial transfers and relational practices that link donors and recipients, shape expectations, and structure access to resources (Gazley & Guo, 2020). In this sense, analysing who gives to whom, under what purposes, and with what degree of continuity, allows researchers to identify forms of selectivity, concentration, and interdependence that are not always visible when focusing exclusively on individual actors or on donors and recipients separately.

Considering that, the present study builds on this body of research and addresses less-examined aspects, aiming to contribute to the field by describing the volume and evolution of philanthropic donations made to public and private educational institutions over the past twenty years (2003-2023). In particular, it aims to address the following research questions: What are the primary characteristics and temporal trends in philanthropic donations to the school system? And, what are the main patterns of philanthropic donations (who donates to whom, how much, and under what purposes) to the education system, using the example of Chile?

Considering this, our study demonstrates: i) patterns of concentration of donations among some donors and recipients that exert a significant influence on the system; ii) temporary changes in the topics funded, with an increasing emphasis on teachers’ training and consultancy; and iii) temporal shifts in the amounts and number of donations. These findings contribute to understanding the complexities of the interaction between public and private actors, revealing that donations are not neutral but rather follow patterns of preference and tend to concentrate on particular individuals over time. Additionally, examining donation networks in the education system offers insights into broader dynamics of philanthropic involvement in public services, including patterns of donor concentration, regulatory sensitivity, and thematic alignment with shifting policy agendas – issues relevant to nonprofit scholars and practitioners across national contexts and in other fields.

Local educational networks have increasingly emerged as a governance response to complex educational and societal challenges such as educational inequality, demographic change, and the diversification of learning opportunities (Ball & Junemann, 2012). They are commonly conceptualized as territorially embedded arrangements that connect formal, non-formal, and informal educational actors in order to coordinate resources, align educational provision, and foster coherent learning trajectories across organizational boundaries (Sørensen & Torfing, 2018). Rather than being governed through hierarchical authority, educational networks rely on cooperation among heterogeneous actors, shared responsibility, and negotiated coordination (Díaz-Gibson et al., 2017). This raises fundamental questions about how steering, accountability, and legitimacy can be organized under conditions of distributed authority and interdependence.

From a governance perspective, educational networks can be understood as multi-actor governance arrangements in which coordination is achieved through a combination of formal structures, informal practices, and actor interpretations (Bevir & Rhodes, 2016). Building on a dual analytical perspective that integrates structure-oriented approaches with social-constructivist perspectives, governance is here conceptualized as both institutionally embedded and socially enacted. Structural approaches emphasize rules, resources, and organizational arrangements, whereas constructivist perspectives focus on meaning-making, negotiation processes, and the situational construction of roles and responsibilities (Ungsuchaval, 2016). The deliberate integration of these perspectives constitutes a central innovative contribution of this study by enabling an empirically grounded linkage of structural and interpretative governance analysis rather than privileging a single analytical lens. This theoretical integration has direct methodological implications. If governance is understood as both structurally patterned and socially constructed, it cannot be adequately captured by single-method designs. Instead, a mixed-methods logic becomes necessary in order to link observable structural configurations with actors’ interpretations, practices, and coordination dynamics. Mixed-methods designs therefore function not merely as technical combinations of methods but as a coherent methodological strategy derived from the underlying governance ontology.

Within these networked governance settings, philanthropic foundations have gained increasing relevance as educational actors. Across many European contexts, foundations increasingly assume responsibilities that extend into coordination, agenda-setting, and network steering (Salamon & Toepler, 2015). This rise of philanthropic actors challenges traditional understandings of public responsibility and introduces new constellations of influence, legitimacy, and accountability in educational governance (Eyal & Yarm, 2018). While existing research has examined foundations’ roles in innovation and partnership development, their function as steering actors within educational networks remains theoretically underdeveloped and empirically insufficiently explored (Koranyi & Kolleck, 2022).

The present study addresses this gap through an in-depth evaluation conducted in cooperation with a German philanthropic foundation that coordinated the development of five local, school-centered educational networks. Evaluation is employed not merely as an instrument of outcome measurement but as a reflexive analytical lens for examining how governance arrangements evolve, stabilize, and are negotiated over time. The empirical case provides a concrete setting in which the proposed governance framework and its mixed-methods implications can be analytically operationalized.

Against this background, the contribution pursues the objective of advancing a governance-informed understanding of how philanthropic foundations participate in steering processes under conditions of distributed responsibility and how such steering can be empirically examined through theoretically grounded mixed-methods approaches. The paper is guided by the following research questions: (1) To what extent can a philanthropic foundation influence the structural development of local educational networks? (2) Which enabling and constraining conditions shape the foundation’s steering capacity within these networked governance arrangements?

Globally, neoliberalism has radically shifted educational policies with respect to curriculum, teaching pedagogy, and teachers’ professionalism (Apple, 2006; Ball, 2003; d’Agnese, 2020). According to Sahlberg (2023), the Global Education Reform Movement (GERM) advances market-based values such as increasing competition, privatization, standardization, test-based accountability, and narrowed curricula, despite evidence that investing in teacher professionalism and educational equity yield stronger outcomes. Weiner and Compton (2018) describe these dynamics as a global neoliberal assault on teachers, the teaching profession, and public education. Although teachers are often expected to remain apolitical (Brickner, 2016), frustration with neoliberal reforms has generated new forms of political engagement and resistance (Kramer, 2024; Maton, 2018).

This paper represents a subset of data from the author’s dissertation study exploring teacher activism within and beyond the union in a Canadian province (Author, 2025a). Earlier analyses of these data employed a framework of alliances, assemblages, and affect, with particular attention to affective politics and how “emotions do things” in activist contexts (Ahmed, 2015; Author 1 & Author 2, 2022). Building on this work, the present paper shifts analytical emphasis toward alliances, drawing on Diani’s (2000) network theory of (new) social movements to examine how relational networks enable teachers to navigate union and grassroots activism.

This paper examines how teacher activists build social networks to contest neoliberal education reforms and promote public education. Focusing on teachers’ political engagement, it asks:

1. How do teacher activists navigate various forms of activism?
2. What do teacher activists reveal about the networks that shape their advocacy?

In doing so, the paper explores how teachers engage in political resistance through relational networks.

The study is informed by Harding et al.’s (2018) theorization of alliances, assemblages, and affect, extending it to examine teacher resistance and public education advocacy as relational, contextually situated, and emotionally charged. Assemblages are understood as dynamic constellations of people, ideas, institutions, and material conditions that continuously intra-act (DeLanda, 2006; Deleuze & Guattari, 1987). Within assemblages, affect circulates as emotional intensities—such as anger, hope, or solidarity—that bind actors together and generate momentum for collective action (Ahmed, 2004).

To conceptualize alliances, the paper draws on Diani’s (2000) network theory, which emphasizes that sustained collective action emerges not from isolated individuals or shared ideology alone, but from actors “linked to each other through complex webs of exchanges” (Diani, 2003, p. 1). In this view, alliances are forged and sustained through social intra-actions—an insight that resonates with both assemblage and affect theory. Drawing on Rokkan’s concept of political cleavages and Simmel’s theory of intersecting social circles, Diani (2000) posited that social movements develop relational systems that can “cut across established social and political cleavages” (p. 387). Political cleavages refer to existing ideological groupings or institutional alignments, in which social circles can be imagined as bounded and concentric. However, shifting and intersecting social circles enable actors to form new, potentially transformative connections that cut across boundaries while still maintaining prior affiliations (Diani, 2003).

Applied to teacher activism, political cleavages are conceptualized as established political institutions or governance structures (e.g., teachers unions or governments), within which social circles operate. New alliances may intersect across these boundaries, enabling teachers to sustain activism while moving between union-based and grassroots spaces. When such intersecting networks recur and stabilize, they can reshape political possibilities and contribute to more equitable arragements.

This relational approach is particularly useful for analyzing contemporary educational politics, where influence emerges through alliances and affective commitments rather than through formal decision-making structures alone. Although grounded in a specific political context, the analytical framework developed here speaks to broader European and international struggles over teacher professionalism, public education, and democratic participation under neoliberal governance.