Beyond the global city: a comparative analysis of cosmopolitanism in middle-class educational strategies in Australia and Brazil

ABSTRACT

The global middle class (GMC) is a theoretical construct that seeks to globalise a set of attributes identified in studies of school choice in the global north, and to a lesser extent in developing nations in Asia. As theorised by Ball a mobile middle class with cosmopolitan sensibilities drives international education options in global cities. This proposition is challenged through analysis of the histories of curriculum and class relations in two national settings (Australia and Brazil) and examination of contemporary class profiles (i.e. economic and cultural properties) in expanding forms of international education in these countries. The paper argues that the forms of cosmopolitanism associated with the educational practices of the GMC must be examined within broader historical relationships of cultural domination. We conclude by arguing that broadening the historical horizon is an important exercise to challenge the claim of the GMC to be a novel category involving exceptional forms of cultural contact generated by the dynamics of the ‘global city’.

KEYWORDS:

• Social class
• cosmopolitanism
• cultural capital
• educational inequality
• international education
• global south

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The two public schools in the list introduced the IB as part of a strategy to ‘turn around’ their image and gain enrolments, in one case in a region with many private schools offering enriched academic curricula. They are an example of imitation of ‘successful’ market players.

2. For both tables 1 and 2, demographic data are drawn from the My School website and the Victorian Department of Education (http://www.education.vic.gov.au/school/teachers/support/diversity/eal/Pages/ealschools.aspx.), Enrolment data are drawn from: https://www.data.vic.gov.au/data/dataset/all-schools-fte-enrolments-feb-2017, VCE study score data are drawn from the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority. 2016 socioeconomic and 2014 student resourcing data are sourced from the My School and ACARA websites. School numbers are provided by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by a PNPD-CAPES fellowship at the Interdisciplinary Graduate Studies Program in Applied Linguistics, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (08/2018-07/2019).