Revisiting the Meaning of an ‘International Education’: Student and School Leader Perceptions in Chinese Internationalised Schools

Abstract

The International School market in China has grown rapidly in recent years, the complexity of the market being seen in the growth of the market in bilingual schools, as well as involvement of the British independent sector in the market. The latter dubbed ‘satellite colleges’ (Bunnell et al, 2020) have had a significant impact on the market, there being 75 schools in China linked to UK independent schools in 2023. Ways in which the UK independent school model interacts with both Chinese education in a bilingual context, and more traditional forms of international education is both under-researched, as well as demonstrative of the some of the complexities of the emerging market in China. Defined in my study as Chinese International Schools (CIS), my thesis is focussed on understanding student and leader perceptions and understandings of these schools.

My research is undertaken in four such schools, all of which are members of the same group, in turn connected to a UK independent school. Focusing on student focus groups, and interviews with school leaders, I investigate student and school leader perceptions of internationalism in these schools, with an emphasis on ways in which these schools are evolving to meet the complex needs of their students. I have used a post-colonial lens as an epistemological approach to allow for a focus for ways in which these schools are perpetuating western-centric norms and understandings, as opposed to evolving to meet the identities of the communities in which they find themselves. In this sense I examine ways in which they are able to foster a local sense of identity, as well as providing a broader sense of global identity and understanding.

My research study has encompassed schools with a mixture of Chinese national students and foreign passport holders. By examining schools which were able to articulate their own curriculum, and those which were mandated to teach the Chinese national curriculum I have been able to understand the complexity of the sector. Equally, this allowed me to examine different perceptions among students studying different curricula, and ways in which their understandings and experiences of internationalism varied across their schools. Broken down into perceptions of the academic curriculum, perceptions of what it meant to have a globalised broader curriculum, perceptions of local and global citizenship, and understandings of the values and ethos of the schools, my research is focussed on student and school leader understandings of these schools. The use of student focus groups allowed me to understand multiple perspectives around my key research question which focussed around student perceptions of internationalism in international schools in China. Their perceptions are further interrogated through semi-structured interviews with school leaders who articulated both their own understandings of these areas, and also the challenges of leading these schools, with the aim of corroborating student responses, as well as potentially understanding ways in which the understandings of school leaders may differ from those of students.

My conclusions are focused around the potential of this market to redefine what we mean by international education, the size and scale of the market in China being a distinct and significant departure for the sector. Given the emphasis on teaching the Chinese National Curriculum these schools also represent the coming together of national and international education, representing a key future direction for the sector. In particular, students emphasised the importance of their schools being rooted in local communities and values, as much as in more westernised ones, this having significant implications for what constitutes an international curriculum. Within this the notion of glocal is significant as a way of considering ways in which the sector in China has the potential to reinvent itself with roots in local communities and curricula as well as more normative international values such as those around global citizenship.

The use of a post-colonial lens as an epistemological approach also emphasised the importance of ensuring that students were given a sense of local identity alongside what it means to be a global citizen. Whilst there remained an emphasis in the schools in this study on Britishness, there was also a recognition from staff as well as students on the importance of Chinese identity and values. Leaders stressed the schools were on a journey towards making China and Chinese identity more of a focus of the curriculum. In turn, the culture of these schools is representative of a hybrid of the local culture of the communities these schools are situated in, with the values and ethos of the expat staff and UK partner schools. They key conclusion of my study is therefore focussed around ways in which perceptions of international are shifting from being predominantly western-centric, to incorporating more localised values and concepts as well as foreign ones

Date of Award	13 Nov 2024
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Bath
Supervisor	Nicola Savvides (Supervisor) & Tristan Bunnell (Supervisor)