The Global Imaginary of International School Communities

by Heather A. Meyer

Overview

This book offers a new perspective into the world of international schools and the lucrative industry that accompanies it. It examines how the notion of the ‘global’ becomes a successful commodity, an important social imaginary and a valuable identity marker for these communities of privileged migrants and host country nationals. The author invites the reader on an ethnographic journey through an international school community located in Germany – illuminating the central features that define and maintain the sector, including its emphasis on ‘globality’, engagement with the concept of ‘Third Culture Kid’, and its wider contentious relationship with the ‘local’. While much attention is placed on ‘global citizenship’, international school communities experience degrees of isolation, limited mobility, over-protection and dependency on the school community– impacting their everyday lives, inside and outside the school. This book is guided by larger questions pertaining to the educationand mobilities of ‘migrant’ youths and young adults, as well as the notion of what it means to be ‘global’ today.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783030727468
Publisher:	Springer International Publishing
Publication date:	05/13/2021
Edition description:	1st ed. 2021
Pages:	245
Product dimensions:	5.83(w) x 8.27(h) x (d)

About the Author

Heather A. Meyer is a Teaching Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Teaching and Learning at Warwick University, UK. She specialises in interdisciplinary research and education and has worked in various educational contexts in the United States, Austria, Kuwait, Germany and the U.K.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction.- 2. Constructing the Global Imaginary.- 3. Boundaries and the Exclusion of the ‘Local’.- 4. Mapping the Culture of International Schools.- 5. A Global Network.- 6. Transitioning Through the International School System.- 7. Moving Forward: Reconstructing the Global Imaginary.