This article seeks to describe a range of enablers of, and constraints on, private actors in New Zealand schooling, using scholarly, polity and mass media sources. It focuses particularly on the decades since the educational reforms of the 4th Labour Government in the 1980s. The article begins by providing a brief background on educational privatisation and governance in New Zealand and elsewhere, in order to provide some context for the concerns explored in the rest of the article. It then considers policy and practice enablers of private actors related to national ideologies and those of key demographics where long-held beliefs support private actors despite various commitments to public provision. The significance of national politics and policy shifts in formal and party-political senses are discussed next, including ways that enactment of policy has opened up new spaces for private actors with indirect and sometimes unintended effects. Overall it is apparent that the conditions and events supporting the development of private actors in New Zealand have often been intermittent, piecemeal, uncertain, and sometimes serendipitous. A further research agenda in this area is outlined.

本文力图通过学术，政治和大众媒体资源，描述新西兰教育中私人行为者的一系列促成因素和制约因素。它特别关注自1980年代第四届工党政府的教育改革以来的几十年。本文首先简要介绍了新西兰及其他地区的教育私有化和治理背景，以便为本文其余部分探讨的问题提供一些背景信息。然后，它考虑了与国家意识形态有关的私人行为者和主要人口统计方面的政策和实践促成因素，尽管人们对公共提供做出了各种承诺，但长期以来的信念仍然支持私人行为者。接下来讨论形式上和党派政治意义上的国家政治和政策转变的重要性，包括制定政策的方式为私人参与者开辟了新的空间，从而产生了间接的，有时甚至是意想不到的影响。总体而言，显然，支持新西兰私人行为者发展的条件和事件往往是断断续续的，零碎的，不确定的，有时是偶然的。概述了该领域的进一步研究议程。