| dc.description.abstract | The aim of this study is to examine how a particular object for consumption, professional
development for teachers and principals, is marketed to schools, and what propositions and
understandings are embedded in such offers. Adopting a conceptualization of marketing as a
“perpetual questioning machine,” the study deploys and develops a theoretical approach from
marketing studies to a new context: edu-marketing. The study is guided by the assumption that
marketing functions as projection screen for the products and services offered to schools, but,
also as a social and cultural space where dreams and desires are performed and governed. As such,
marketing to school is not exclusively about selling things; but about what to be or who to become.
Besides the theoretical contribution, the study contributes with empirical knowledge about (1)
what concerns and desires this marketing “questioning machine” mobilizes and circulates and (2)
how objects for consumption are de/stabilized in the education market. Thereby, it demonstrates
some of the intricate relations between the growing education market and the values that those
who work in schools are invited to strive for. It is argued that consumption at the education
market-place is a question of identity, and therefore of branding and possible success. | vi |
