Modalities of cosmopolitanism and mobility: parental education strategies of global, immigrant and local middle-class Israelis

ABSTRACT

In this study, we explore how different forms of family mobility shape parental education strategies of three middle-class groups (moored Israeli professionals, immigrants from Israel to the UK and global middle class Israeli families). By focusing on families from the same nationality, we show how different practices of mobility differentiate between these middle-class fractions. Building on Andreotti’s framework for ‘global mindedness’ we suggest that orientations to cosmopolitanism also differentiate between these groups – from tourism (moored middle class), to empathy (immigrant middle class), to visiting (global middle class). By drawing on this conceptualisation, it is possible to understand why, despite the considerable uncertainty that constant mobility generates for children’s education and futures, global middle-class parents appear to assuredly navigate processes of securing and transmitting advantage.

KEYWORDS:

• Global middle class
• mobility
• cosmopolitanism
• global mindedness
• Beck

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. We did not find significant differences between the narratives created by the mothers and fathers in our study, despite the mothers taking a more prominent role in child-raising routines (Vincent, Braun, & Ball, 2008). Given the relatively small sample of fathers, further comparative work would be needed to comment on this more comprehensively.