Elite School and the Formation of a Cosmopolitan Imaginary

Fazal RizviThe University of Melbourne

How do elite schools in the tradition of British public schools interpret and work towards the

formation of a cosmopolitan imaginary, within the rhetoric they have increasingly

embraced of internationalization of education?

Elite Schools in Globalizing Circumstances : a global ethnography

(an ARC project with Jane Kenway, Cameron McCarthy, Debbie Epstein, Aaron Koh and Johannah Fahey)

• How are elite schools negotiating the challenges and opportunities associated with globalization?• How are they repositioning themselves within the globally competitive terrain in which such schools now operate?• How this requires new ways of thinking about the processes of class formations in and through education?

EnglandAustraliaBarbados

India Singapore

CyprusSouth AfricaHong KongArgentina

not conceptualizing different sites as separate case studies, but one single, multi-sited ethnography

working across the sites and as a team

Our Methodological Approach

Global and multi-sited ethnography

“All localities are becoming globalized, to a greater or lesser extent, through a range of global forces affecting them; through the various connections that each locality is able to forge across multiple and contested boundaries; and through the imaginations to which these forces and connections inevitably and reflexively give rise.” (Burawoy et al. 2000)

Global Ethnography thus focuses on:

mobilities more than statistravel more than dwellingfluidity more than fixitydisembeddedness more than embeddednesschange more than stabilityrelationalities more than attributes

Findings from an Indian School

McCauley College

(established in 1972 in a medium sized industrial city in central India by regional Maharajahs and

Nawabs on a site of 124 acres of land)

History of the School in stages

The Victorian era (19th century)High colonial period (1901-1947)

Post-colonial transformations (1947-1966)A Period of decline (1966-2003)

Renewal as an international school (now)

A commitment to the principles of Kurt Hahn and Round Square1.The primacy of self-discovery

2. The having of wonderful ideas3. The responsibility for learning

4. Empathy and caring5. Success and failure

6. Collaboration and competition7. Diversity and inclusion

8. The natural world9. Solitude and reflection

10. Service and compassion

Round Square is a worldwide association of some 80 schools which share a commitment beyond academic excellence, to personal development

and responsibility, and to international collaborations.

The School’s view of cosmopolitanism derived from Hanh’s key principles and values of

Round Square, together with a deep awareness of India’s postcolonial Social

democratic principles.

A focus on Service“To Serve with Love”

A community Project at SanawadiaThe Eye Camp

Cooperation with a School for the Blind

A focus on Environment

The Green CenterWater Management

Organic FarmingVillage and City Energy Audits

Waste ManagementBiodiversity Walk

A Focus on Adventure

Outdoor activitiesAdditional sports facilitiesDuke of Edinburgh AwardGreening of the campus

A Focus on Internationalism

Solving local problems from a global perspective

Student exchangeAttending conferences on global

problemsUsing technology to become globally

interconnected

A Happy Story

BUT

…

The introduction of the Cambridge International curriculum in 2007

Strong competition to get a place

---- Why? ----

Prestige associated with an international qualificationPreparation for international higher education

Perceptions of labor market advantagesLinks to India’s participation in global economy

Aligning the local with the global

contradictions of class across competing views of cosmopolitanism

emergence of an elite transnational class with a complex cosmopolitan

imaginary

class interests most directly conflict with the school’s moral ethos especially in relation to

the prospects of the regulatory requirements of the Indian government’s

Right to Education Act passed in 2009

Growing fear of becoming swamped with 25 % of students from poor and marginalized

backgrounds

Strategies for protecting transnational class interests.

DISCUSSION