Students go to schools in new districts! public high school relocation as intrapreneurial education provision in China

Abstract

This study examines how China's public education system employs entrepreneurial strategies to promote urban development while balancing welfare needs and market pressures. It challenges the conventional appropriation of neoliberal urban entrepreneurialism - characterized by public-private partnerships dominating urban governance - and argues that, in the Chinese context, internal entrepreneurial efforts within the public sector drive local policymaking. This study extends the concept of intrapreneurialism, which emphasizes how public sectors undergo internal advancements, adaptations, and reconfigurations with strategic objectives, as a sub-model of urban entrepreneurialism in Chinese social provision. A conceptual framework is developed to illustrate how Chinese municipalities navigate educational reforms to support new town development and cultivate a business-friendly environment within school catchment zones. This framework identifies education policy intentions and the responses of schools and families as critical indicators of municipal intrapreneurial strategies. Using a case study of secondary education in Xiangyang City, central China, we find that intrapreneurial education provision underscores the continued dominance of public actors - urban governments and public schools - in accommodating market forces and parental aspirations. The strategic relocation of public high schools has intensified competition for scarce public resources and amplified state-society relations.