‘Cosmopolitan start-up’ capital: mobility and school choices of global middle class parents

Beech, Jason; Koh, Aaron; Maxwell, Claire; Yemini, Miri; Tucker, Khen; Barrenechea, Ignacio

doi:10.1080/0305764x.2020.1863913

Cited by 18 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…The IBDP, by contrast, was identified as distinctive through promising capitals with a greater amount of 'global exchange value' for admission, preparation, and networks for universities worldwide, although most students planned to attend universities in the Anglophone West (see also Schippling & Abrantes, 2022). Nonetheless, the IBDP stood out as yielding a distinctive form of 'cosmopolitan start-up capital' (Beech et al, 2021): a form of capital that was convertible in spaces across the global higher education field beyond national localities.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The promised capitals of international high school programmes and the global field of higher education: The case of Shenzhen, China

Wright

Mulvey

2022

Jnl of Research in Internatl Education

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The term ‘international school’ encompasses a broad array of institutions offering a range of different programmes. However, the differences between these programmes have scarcely been explored in the existing literature. This article focuses on three popular international high school programmes (Advanced Levels, Advanced Placement, and International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme) by drawing upon in-depth interviews with international school counsellors, teachers, parents, and students in Shenzhen, China. We employed the Bourdieusian concepts of ‘promised capitals’ and the ‘global field of higher education’ to delineate differences amongst these international programmes. We argue that each international programme promises the accumulation of distinct combinations of capitals associated with different global circuits of mobility for higher education. At the same time, we also suggest that the extent to which the promised capitals are conferred is complicated by the ‘localisation’ of schools: this impacted the delivery of promises related to embodied cultural and social capital forms.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The promised capitals of international high school programmes and the global field of higher education: The case of Shenzhen, China

Wright

Mulvey

2022

Jnl of Research in Internatl Education

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“…First, whereas in 1989, expatriates made up approximately 80% of international school students with 20% of host-country national students, by 2018 the proportions had been reversed (ISC Research, 2018). This demand change is in part explained by economic globalisation seeing the expansion of a global middle class who want their children to develop the linguistic and other skills to succeed in a globalised workforce, often through attendance at international schools (Beech et al, 2021). Second, the growth in numbers has been met by the opening of for-profit institutions (Kim, 2019), including international schools, and overseas franchises of prestigious institutions from 'Anglo-Saxon' countries (Gibson and Bailey, 2021), or as Kachru (1985) refers to them 'inner circle' countries, where English is traditionally the first language of the majority of the population, such as the UK, the USA, Australia and New Zealand.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

International Schools and De-globalisation: Exploring the tensions during the Covid-19 crisis

Bailey,

Gibson

2024

Jnl of Research in Internatl Education

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This paper explores the thesis of de-globalisation in relation to international education. Through interrogating accounts of international school leadership during the Covid-19 crisis, the tension between international expectations and localised realities is charted, with four central tenets of internationalism undermined by the pandemic experience. It is argued that the Covid-19 crisis, ostensibly a single global event, resulted in the fractalisation of international education; the conceptualisation of unified internationalism was undermined by the inherently localised material effects of the pandemic. In place of an internationalism that is unified, transcendent, inclusive and connected, international school leaders’ accounts of leading through the pandemic focused on their sense that their schools were fractured, rooted, privileged and isolated. It is suggested that this international crisis demonstrates the precarious nature of the respatialising of the global that is intrinsic to international schooling.

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“…Previous research on the topic of global school choice and mobilities of global households mainly focuses on international students seeking higher education (Bhandari and Blumenthal, 2013; Ma and Garcia-Murillo, 2017; Mosneaga and Winther, 2013; Stein and Andreotti, 2015), global households treating education as part of their migration strategy (Abelmann et al, 2014; Chiang, 2008; Fong, 2010; Orellana et al, 2001; Waters, 2015; Zhou, 1998), or the ‘local’ school choices of middle-class families that move together globally (Beech et al, 2021; Maxwell and Yemini, 2019; Maxwell et al, 2019). This research provides a unique angle where emerging urban upper-middle-class parents exit the local school-choice market and send their children away to a foreign country for private secondary education, with the belief that it is the ‘best’ choice available in the global educational market.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

In search of the ‘best’ option: American private secondary education for upper-middle-class Chinese teenagers

2021

Current Sociology

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This article focuses on unpacking the processes of how a rapidly rising group of urban upper-middle-class Chinese families decide to send their only children to the United States on their own for private secondary education. The article analyzes the socio-historical background of such choice and lays out these families’ various paths to opting out of the neoliberal school-choice market in China and eyeing American private secondary education as the ‘best’ option. Based on in-depth interviews with 33 parents in several Chinese mega-cities, the author demonstrates that Chinese urban upper-middle-class families choose such a transnational educational choice as a silent exit from the anxiety-ridden Chinese education system. Situated in the socio-historical transformation of contemporary Chinese society, the reasons for exiting range from dissatisfaction with the political narrative to educational aspiration of a ‘well-rounded’ education and resistance against the test-oriented pedagogical practices at school. This ethnographic research provides a unique perspective to engage with works on elite education in a global context and enriches the theorization of the global middle classes.

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‘Cosmopolitan start-up’ capital: mobility and school choices of global middle class parents

Cited by 18 publications

References 29 publications

The promised capitals of international high school programmes and the global field of higher education: The case of Shenzhen, China

The promised capitals of international high school programmes and the global field of higher education: The case of Shenzhen, China

International Schools and De-globalisation: Exploring the tensions during the Covid-19 crisis

In search of the ‘best’ option: American private secondary education for upper-middle-class Chinese teenagers

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