SCHOOLS OUT OF PLACE, NEW GEOGRAPHIES OF EDUCATION

This panel seeks to raise questions about traditional conceptions of schooling as territorialized and place-bound by bringing together papers that present cases of schooling "out of place".  Globalization and new global flows seem to possess the potential to dramatically reconfigure the geographies that bind schooling to particular locales.  Through this panel the Globalization and Education SIG aims to generate a conversation on how we can account for and study such forms of deterritorialization.

 

 

Globalization and Educational 'Markets': Canadian Offshore Schools in China
Hans G. Schuetze (University of British Columbia)

 

ABSTRACT: As a consequence of globalization of markets for “educational services”, and in order to generate additional revenues for their own operations, Canadian schools and post-secondary institutions are “exporting” their educational programs to China. China’s large market is seen as a great opportunity by Canadian policy makers and educational institutions for generating revenues and also as a “branding opportunity” to benefit Canadian producers of other services and goods.  Since the mid-1980s China has opened up its education system to non-public institutions. So-called “social forces” can own and operate schools and universities on a non-profit basis (minban schools). China has also encouraged the establishment of foreign schools (‘Chinese-foreign cooperation institutions’) which use foreign curricula and teaching materials, and English as language of instruction. Of the approx. 900 offshore secondary schools in China  Canadian provinces have certified about 90.  Nine of these are run as independent schools under the jurisdiction of the province of British Columbia (BC).

 

Branch Campuses in a Neo-Liberal Context
Patricia Croom (Michigan State University)

 

ABSTRACT: In today’s high-technology, knowledge economy, higher education is more important than ever. To this end, developed and developing nations are keen to expand access to higher education. Some nations, however, have greatly expanding college-aged populations and lack the resources to meet the demand for higher education on their own. As a result, they are turning to cross-border education suppliers to help them quickly build capacity. This growing demand creates attractive opportunities for many established higher education institutions, allowing them to expand their reach, prestige, and influence while seeking new sources of revenue by expanding abroad. Although higher education today remains a domain largely managed and regulated within national borders, the expansion of cross-border initiatives raises questions as to how long this will persist.  Do trends toward privatization and importing of higher education capacity point toward a world where tertiary education becomes one more globalized market? This proposal examines one aspect of cross-border education, the branch campus.  The paper considers how the branch campus fits into the increasingly global realm of international education, with particular attention to how the proliferation of branch campuses both reflects and reinforces neo-liberal higher education policy.

 

The Pedagogical Camp: Refugees, Education, and Repatriation in a Global Milieu
Andrew Epstein (University of Wisconsin, Madison)

 

ABSTRACT: This paper reviews the current literature on refugee camps and contrasts it with ongoing research the author is conducting on Sudanese youth and schools in the Kakuma Refugee Camp in northwest Kenya. It finds that while this literature tends to foreground nation-states and the degree to which refugees exist in relation to a national order of things, a closer examination reveals that the refugee camp bears closer relation a global order of things. Kakuma is a unique and complex stage where the pressing socio-political problems of sovereignty and civil conflict, development and democratization, identity and citizenship, and the confluence of the local and global play out. The organizations and policies associated with these problems have direct and indirect influence over the way education is mobilized in Kakuma, each of which enact often conflicting agendas. Viewing the refugee camp as a particular instance of globalization will help the author pursue an investigation of how education in the camp influences expressions of ethnicity and nationality by refugee youth and how a decline in educational resources in the camp, a result of shifting donor support away from Kakuma and toward South Sudan, impact voluntary repatriation and the emerging South Sudanese state.

 

DISCUSSANTS:

Peter Demerath (University of Minnesota)
Irving Epstein (Illinois Wesleyan University)