The united world college experience and its framing: the evidence from a residential short course

ABSTRACT

The continuously growing field of private English-speaking international schooling has always involved a dichotomy of approach. The marginal ‘internationalist’ approach, ideologically committed to nurturing unity and global peace, is exemplified by the cadre of United World Colleges (UWC). The UWCs began in 1962 and now number 18 globally educating 10,500 young people yet have largely evaded empirical research inquiry into their processes and experience. The inter-linked UWC 10-day residential ‘Short Course’ is a particularly strong unit of potential inquiry. By utilising Erving Goffman’s Frame Analysis we will investigate the UWC experience, as metaphorically told by participants. The course is framed as a ‘safe space’ whereby the participants can act out their thoughts and emotions, whilst also helping to bring them closely together as a ‘mini society’. This immersion, as a community of similarly minded yet privileged young people, seems to be a strongly inter-connecting experience.

KEYWORDS:

• International education
• international schooling
• internationalist
• framing
• Goffman
• united world college

The dichotomy of international education

The ‘globalist’ approach

Recent discussion has described ‘international education’ as having a number of distinct ‘fields’ (Dugonjic-Rodwin, 2021). The well-established field encompassing private K-12 schools delivering a non-national curriculum largely outside an English-speaking nation has reached 12,000 according to data emanating from the market intelligence agency ISC Research, showing a doubling in size since 2012 (Stacey, 2020). It has long-been discussed (Resnik, 2012) how this continuously growing field requires closer sociological inquiry in terms of its practices, potential outcomes and experience, and our paper answers this ongoing call by using an original lens, that of symbolic interaction as presented through Erving Goffman’s (1974) Frame Analysis. This will help to provide a framework whereby we can begin to investigate the process and mechanism by which the privileged elite international schooling experience might help to (quite quickly) unify and motivate young people.

We will focus on one approach to international education that has escaped critical investigation, largely due to the enormous growth and development of the much larger other approach. The diverse field of private K-12 English-speaking international schooling has always involved the fundamental reconciliation of a dichotomy of approach between the idealistic ‘internationalist’ stance driven by values and a strong sense of mission to facilitate intercultural understanding and global peace, and the more pragmatic ‘globalist’ one driven by the need for a competent globally skilled workforce (Cambridge & Thompson, 2004). This dichotomy has always been more heavily balanced towards the latter ‘globalist’ approach, both in terms of reports about its growth and its operation in practice. The current major growth area involves commercialised and branded networks of schools such as Dubai-based GEMS Education and the British Columbia accredited Maple Leaf Educational Systems, whilst ‘gold rush’ conditions in Asia (Machin, 2017) has led to mainland China emerging since 2019 as the epicentre of activity where an emerging ‘global middle class’ is seemingly feeding demand (Wright & Lee, 2019). New models of ‘globalist’ schooling continue to emerge, such as the ‘Chinese Internationalised School’ (Poole, 2020) delivering a complex form of ‘cosmopolitan nationalism’ (Wright et al., 2021), and that particular ‘non-traditional’ (Hayden & McIntosh, 2018) arena in mainland China is currently attracting much attention. This is not to say that the ‘globalist’ approach only exists in Asia and the Middle East, and many well-established ‘traditional’ international schools in Northern Europe are now part of the stable of commercial groupings.

The ‘internationalist’ approach

We shift attention in our paper to the ‘internationalist’ approach. It is difficult to visualise this landscape, which might partly help to explain its relative lack of research attention, but at the centre of the more overlooked and increasingly fringe ‘internationalist’ approach arguably stands the institutions belonging to the Hong-Kong based Yew Chung Education Foundation, the Geneva-registered International Schools Association (ISA), the 200-strong Round Square network, and the United World Colleges (UWC). We acknowledge that these sets of institutions are complex and varied, with much variation of activity making a clear-cut dichotomy of approach difficult, however they share a common philosophy aimed at facilitating global peace and intercultural understanding.

Our paper is concerned with the latter body, the UWC, described as a ‘pioneering organisation that established schools based on an ideology of global peace and reciprocal understanding’ (Flesh et al., 2021, p. 26). Cambridge and Thompson (2004, p. 164) identified the UWCs as ‘a cadre of ideologically internationalist institutions.’ The UWC has long-been seen as a ‘daring and imaginative experiment’ (Samaranayake (1991, p. 2) in international education, presenting itself as the ‘visionary leader’ (Tsumagari, 2010, p. 291).

The UWC is undeniably ‘internationalist’; it describes itself (at: www.uwc.org) as a ‘global movement that makes education a force to unite people, nations and cultures for peace and a sustainable future.’ The term ‘global movement’ implies a strong sense of purpose and mission, and it has an ethos and belief that: ‘Education can bring together young people from all backgrounds on the basis of their shared humanity.’ It is this bold set of claims, of ‘uniting people’ and bringing together young people’, that we will principally report upon.

The UWC first appeared in 1962, in the form of the residential Atlantic College in South Wales, inspired by the German educationalist Kurt Hahn (Van Oord, 2010) and his concept of ‘experience therapy’ based upon community service and action (Hayden & McIntosh, 2018). Despite exactly 60 years of existence, that college has undergone very little critical investigation, which is a common feature of elite boarding schools in general (Gaztambide-Fernández, 2009).

Today it is a ‘global movement’ geographically, comprised (in 2021) of 18 schools and colleges on four continents (7 in Europe, 6 in Asia-Pacific, 3 in The Americas, and 2 in Africa), educating 10,500 young people (over half of them are at UWC Singapore, aged 4–18). A decade ago, there were 14 colleges (Tsumagari, 2010); since then, colleges have emerged in Armenia (in 2014), Germany (in 2014), China (in 2015), and Japan (in 2017).

The UWCs are known for being deliberately diverse in terms of both educators and students (Reimers, 2013). The UWC website (uwc.org/about) states this as being official policy:

We are deliberately diverse. UWC national committees in over 150 countries and territories are able to reach and select young people from different backgrounds, cultures and experiences. Students at every school make friends from all over the world, and gain a deeper understanding of different ways of thinking.

The ‘deliberate diversity’ aspect seems important. One ethnographic study (Holland, 2016) into the impact of the UWC in New Mexico concluded that the students ‘experienced the “triumph of the personal” where distant nations took on the contours, affect, and emotional weight of personal connections.’ At the same time, we know (Flesh et al., 2021, p. 29) that ‘students attending international schools generally come from a well-off family background’, where ‘a global orientation and outlook’ is valued. We also know that there are parents deliberately seeking global labour market advantages for their children. Hence, we might expect that although the young people attending a UWC might be from ‘distant nations’, they are likely to share a fairly common background in terms of views and emotions, driven by a shared sense of social class and privileged education. The potential for them to bond together, quickly, is a strong one.

At one level, this might help to deliver the UWC’s bold mission. At another, it forms a strong platform for relationships and networks to be formed that will be potentially advantageous, perhaps on a global stage. This is a privileged schooling outcome, and one that warrants critical sociological analysis.

The need for more research into the experience

The UWC movement has a long-established image of being elite, and elitist, as well as idealistic, and ideological. This ‘fragile legitimacy’ (Erichsen & Waldow, 2020) beset by all forms of elite schooling in some form is largely mitigated by a substantial use of scholarships, giving the UWCs an image of charity and inclusivity. The UWC website says that 80% of students get a full or partial scholarship (the full cost can rise to USD120,000 for the two-year Long Courses). Fox (1995 p. 55) had stated the UWC movement must work hard ‘to demonstrate that it does not foster elitist tendencies.’ King (1988 p. 251) described how the IB and the UWC movement had a common elitist aim to ‘foster humanely responsible social, national, and international leadership’, which is offset by generous scholarship provision. Sutcliffe (1991 p. 25) acknowledged the elitist nature of the colleges but maintained that the addition of the one in Swaziland (where the full cost of the Long Course is much lower) had helped mitigate this.

This is undeniably a privileged area of education, with limited access. All the UWCs offer the International Baccalaureate’s Diploma Programme (IBDP), and we know that the emphasis on delivering the skills, attributes, and knowledge associated with ‘international mindedness’ offers a platform for class-consciousness and solidarity (Bunnell et al., 2020). We know that in the USA, access to the IBDP is limited geographically in terms of proximity to cities and the same is true of Australia and Ecuador. We also know (Bunnell & Hatch, 2021) that access to the elite forms of ‘traditional international schooling’ is heavily biased towards the already privileged ‘international community’ with an endowed form of cultural and social capital, and discrete forms of gatekeeping blocking wider access. At the same time, we know that the graduates of such a (similar and exclusive) schooling experience have access to universities on a global scale, whilst a clustering process is occurring in certain universities (e.g. the University of British Columbia) which offers a potential platform for future networking and labour-market interaction (Bunnell et al., 2021).

We will present here for discussion an original insight into how the every-day operation of the UWCs might help, in theory and practice, to allow young people to construct (or ‘frame’) in their minds a sense of collective identity and a sense of unity. The specific evidence of experience and potential outcomes is still quite limited, coming largely from either a single case study, the views of UWC ‘insiders’, from a specific national context (e.g. Israeli youth: Flesh et al., 2021), or the operation of the UWC in a particular space (e.g. Mostar: Forde, 2019; Van Oord & Corn, 2013).

Overall, there has been a limited body of studies into the UWC experience. Branson (2003) undertook a Doctoral study into the potential outcomes of the UWC Movement. The UWC experience has been explored (Tsumagari, 2010, p. 289) through the eyes of a (single) graduate from Atlantic College, reporting that:

The graduate has incubated her own ideal in seeking relevance to the changing world for the whole life environment that UWC had provided to nurture international togetherness on a personal level and across the globe.

The claim here of ‘nurturing togetherness’ is one that we will partly investigate.

Overall, the few, limited studies have been quite positive. One case study from the 1990s (Willis et al., 1994) showed the UWC alumni had been positively influenced, and Fail’s (1996) study concluded that the environment (hidden curriculum) was the major factor. Rawlings’ (1999) study of Atlantic College made the same conclusion. One leading UWC educator (Wilkinson, 2002) had argued that the two-year schooling experience was a life-changing experience, supported by Branson (2003), and Wilkinson and Hayden (2010).

Tsumagari (2010, p. 289) had showed ‘concern over the scarcity of evidence on the impact or effect of this global education model’. In particular, Tsumagari (2010, p. 289) identified insufficient research on the ideologically-led dimension of international education and, particularly, on ‘whether students emerge from schools that promote such values actively demonstrating the desired characteristics’. A decade later, these two points still seem correct; there is still scarcity of evidence of the effect or process of the UWC schooling ‘experience’. Our paper aims to begin to fill this important gap. Although a longitudinal study was beyond our remit, and is evidently needed, we present in our paper empirical evidence from a small-scale study of one of the UWC ‘Short Courses’ (explained below).

The research approach

The UWC and its ‘Short Courses’

Perez’s (2015, p. 7) research had concluded that the UWC is ‘an incredibly strong unit of analysis to study mission, organization, and outcomes.’ There are actually two strong units of analysis. Alongside the (normally, two-year) ‘Long Courses’, the UWC Movement also since 1978 have offered ‘Short Courses’. The UWC Short Courses (UWCSCs) are an integral part of the UWC movement’s repertoire of practice, intended as a condensed form of the longer experience, thus offering a practical unit of empirical inquiry. One of our participants neatly summarised it as follows: I think at its core it’s just an extension of the UWC movement fitted into two weeks. The UWC website describes them as a ‘pillar of UWC impact’ and exclaims ‘How can you spark a change in your life and the world around you in just a matter of days or weeks?’. It is this dramatic claim, of being able to ‘spark a change in your life’ that we will begin to report upon.

Lasting for about 10-days in June or December, the UWCSCs involve 30–60 young people aged 14–20. In 2019, there were 25 UWCSCs around the world. To give an insight into what the UWCSC involves, consider that an upcoming UWCSC planned for the UWC Mahindra College campus in Pune, India is titled ‘Youth for Social Change’ and is described as ‘an eight-day intensive and immersive residential programme that aims to equip young students with the leadership skills required to create positive, lasting change and tackle pressing social problems.’ During the course, the participants will learn how to design and implement a social change project. Some scholarships are available, and the fee is GBP 380.

Our paper explores the practice and experiences of one of the 2019 courses that took place in Northern Europe involving 50 participants over 10 days. Arsenault’s (2007) account of the 10-day trek through India revealed the transformational potential of the service-project based learning experience that all UWCs offer, yet no study has been made of the similar duration Short Course. The participants were aged 16–19. The ages 16–19 are significant, and deliberately chosen, as this is a ‘period characterised by identity formation and development’, meaning ‘the impact of their education’s ideological inclinations is particularly acute’ (Flesh et al., 2021, p. 26).

The site of the course was isolated, in countryside close to a village and a river. The facilitators were housed in a separate building from the young people, who were housed in dormitory accommodation usually consisting of rooms with four-beds. The immersive nature of the course was expressed by one of our participants, Agathe, as ‘we get to spend like twenty-four seven all together and so you get to know the people on a deeper level.’

The theme of the 450 Euro costing course was ‘Building and Crossing Bridges’. The infopack sent to the participants said the aim was ‘to provide a platform that increases multicultural understanding among all participants.’ Further, it stated that the ‘participants will experience a life-changing experience, develop soft skills such as communication and project planning, and forge strong friendships and understanding across cultures and borders.’ It is the ‘life changing experience’ aspect that we will primarily report on revealing how the young people talk about their experience, and how they give meaning to that experience.

The role of the researcher

The second author spent the entire duration of the course with the participants, building trust and empathy. In this context, as a form of qualitative phenomenological research (Wilson, 1977), it might also be seen a form of (semi)ethnography, with a longitudinal aspect, intended to gain a deeper understanding, yet where the researcher is a ‘complete observer’ not a participant. This allowed the researcher to interview the participants as a narrator, prompting responses to things they had noticed through structured observation. This helped to guide the interview schedule, and helped produce a rich, deep data revealing thoughts and reflections (Ortiz, 2003).

The study adhered to the British Educational Research Association’s (BERA) Ethical Guidelines. In order to ensure informed consent, we asked participants to volunteer to be interviewed. Twelve volunteered (out of a cohort of 50) and they were interviewed towards the end of course, in English, mainly outside in the woods or near the river. This poses a limitation to the study since it is likely that those who volunteered were the most enthused and excited (or dramatical) about the experience and wished to share their enthusiasm with the researcher. Further, it is likely they had a confident use of spoken English. We know little about the views of the others, although we observed that no participant cut short the course and all endured the whole duration. However, we are aware that we maybe gained the insights of the most positive and motivated actors. All names used hereafter are anonymised and their nationality has not been given to ensure anonymity. Given the cultural diversity of the participants, we have used a diversity of names. It is important to disclose that neither of the authors of this paper have any experience or previous contact with the UWC movement.

The theoretical lens

We will utilise the early works of the Canadian-American symbolic interactionist Erving Goffman (1922–1982) and his ‘Second Chicago School’ (Fine, 1995). Through Goffman, we can begin to investigate the UWCSC as experienced by the young participants and learn how they make sense of what happened in terms of the situation and its activities. We will use Goffman’s (1959) early work on Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, and the interaction rituals of social interaction (Goffman, 1967), leading to his Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organisation of Experience (Goffman, 1974).

Goffman’s (1974) concept of ‘framing’ helps us to understand how the participants might make connections with what they already know and is an important concept in understanding how they as individuals might perceive, and make sense of, reality. Goffman’s work is particularly useful for understanding how residential institutions can affect and transform individuals that are immersed together in an enclosed formally administered lifestyle (Davies, 1989). The elite private boarding school has been seen (Mouzelis, 1971) as one such example of what Goffman (1961) called the ‘total institution’ where individuals are immersed together in an enclosed, segregated setting.

The data from the 12 participants was transcribed and analysed for evidence of common words and metaphors that might help to describe the drama that had occurred, a technique proffered by Linstrom and Marais (2012). We know from Goffman’s Frame Analysis that every-day interactions are usually expressed using metaphors or symbols. Goffman himself heavily utilised the metaphor of the theatre (Craib, 1978), with a drama and a story occurring, offering a form of ‘dramaturgical analysis’ (Goffman, 1959). Every-day events are usually expressed, however mundane, in a rather dramatic or theatrical way. Such is the ‘organisation of experience’ (Manning, 1980).

Seen from a dramaturgical perspective, the researcher over the 10-days had moved ‘backstage’, seeing the show from an angle not normally achieved. This allowed the participants to be more candid about their emotional response to the course and the overall experience. It also allowed the researcher to conduct the interview in a deeper manner, gaining insights that would not normally be collected.

We found that two rather theoretical metaphors appeared numerous times. These are about the experience of the course having developed a group/community/family spirit like a ‘mini society’, whilst also having offered a ‘safe space’ for the participants to express and share their feelings and thoughts, often in ways they dare not at home with their ‘ordinary’ friends. This framing of the shared experience as a bonding and interconnecting one in a safe, secure environment where they might feel free to act out of character, as if on stage, will next be explored in detail with direct quotes from many of the participants.

The UWCSC offering a ‘safe space’

The participants sensed the course offered a space where they can talk, voice opinions and take risks. It is seen as intense, but safe. Katie, for instance, expressed how her public speaking skills had improved as a result of the course, and she felt she had somehow been ‘trained’ to do it through being forced to do it. Katie also talked about an activity where ‘we all have to share our opinions and then we all have to talk and say what’s going on in our mind.’ In the afternoon sessions, built around ‘toolbox workshops’, Katie had felt she had improved her organisational skills, and sensed she was more confident about developing and leading a project.

The notion of the course being a ‘safe space’ was a common metaphor used by seven of the 12 participants. Shafaq said that:

We can say our opinion and they create the safe place and everyone could talk about everything

George told us:

The facilitators always said this is a safe space, nobody judges you, and nobody can think nothing bad about you. You are a in safe space … you are in a safe space to talk, to speak and to express yourself, and this safe space was like a constant during all the short course.

The ‘safe space’ is important as it allows the participants to share thoughts that they dare not express back home. In other words, they feel able to express themselves out of character, as if acting as another person. Stefan told us that he had been able to converse with others on the course, and talk about himself, in a way that he could not back home with his ‘ordinary’ friends:

I think what I’ve enjoyed the most is finding so many new people that I never thought existed. And at home there’s basically nobody that I can have this kind of conversation, like deep conversations, talk about myself.

Stefan’s mention of finding ‘people that I never though existed’ is important, as it shows that he previously saw himself as different from his friends yet could not connect with others (he had not yet met). Stefan now ‘frames’ himself in a new light, as being similar to others on the course. One might imagine this to be an enlightening and uplifting experience, an awakening of sorts.

Janique expressed to us a similar outlook as Stefan, saying that her friends back home were not interested in the things she feels passionate about. She told us that:

I’ve loved making all these new friends and just knowing that they all share the same kind of views as me, and the same kind of passions. Like, I know that with my friends back in England, if I brought up the topic of climate change or politics they’d be like, ‘oh shut up, I don’t want to talk about this’.

Janique here is expressing her view that she felt able to use a different ‘script’. Agathe had come on the course mainly to practice her English and had few opinions on what was expected to happen. She had joined the course feeling the best aspect would be mixing with people from other countries. She said that:

Meeting the people. That’s what I enjoyed the most. I connected so much with people on such different levels and yeah, it was really great to see how people would open up and just feel so comfortable.

The use of ‘different levels’ is significant, and shows that Agathe had undergone a realisation that she had much more in common than she previously thought, maybe at a social class level. Also, Agathe had noticed that even the shyest had opened up during the activities:

So from, like, the outside I could see some introverts becoming more and more open and sharing their capacities, their loves and their stories.

This is likely to be an emotive experience and the participants refer to much crying and emotional outbursts. As Katie confided:

No one warned me that this was going to be so emotional and that I would get such a deep knowledge of myself and of the other persons.

George testified to the emotions of the course:

There were many people crying after leaving the short course or in the days before and crying a lot, and in fact, I didn’t cry. I never cried during the short course, even during the activities, like really strong activities.

The fact that many people were crying points to a degree of theatrical behaviour having occurred. Barry remarked on how he ‘enjoyed the activities and most were very fun, and very emotional at the same time’. He also said that ‘I think I learned a lot about myself and my community, even if I am part of a very different community here.’

The UWCSC and the formation of a ‘mini society’

Ten of the 12 participants referred to the forming of a ‘family’, a ‘community’, and a ‘mini society’. Barry explained to us what he thought that was the purpose of the course is. He was very sure about it, saying:

I think they are trying to bring the whole world together here, so many people from many countries with many different backgrounds, and this creates a mini society in here, and we try to interact with each other and get to know each other, and I realised that we have so much in common.

Agathe referred to ‘that big family type of feeling’ having emerged. There was evidence of very strong friendships having been made, in only 10 days.

Katie said that: ‘I’ve made already very strong friendships in here in just a few days, which is weird.’ Katie then explained how she thought this had happened. It seemed to come through the depth of the connections that had appeared:

The friendships are really strong, maybe because it’s just been a few days, but I think most people here are themselves. They’re not playing the pretend game that we play generally in our daily basis, where we pretend maybe everything is alright and we’re happy. Here we, like, are not afraid to be vulnerable. We have the sharing moments; we have the confidentiality moments, so I think we create really strong connections with each other, because we all show our weaknesses.

The use of the term ‘pretend games’ shows that Katie thinks the experience is an authentic one, whilst her ‘ordinary’ life is an act. Katie implied that the group on the course are ‘insiders’, different from ‘normal society’. She said that:

I just say now in normal society, that it is outside of here, people don’t talk a lot. And, in my opinion, it’s very important that people just see it as a taboo and they really feel awkward talking about it. And I liked the way that we talked about it in here.

Partly, the issue seemed to be that many on the course saw themselves as ‘global citizens’, with an identity that is perhaps different from the ‘normal’ citizen. This sort of existential disconnect, with the ‘national’ or ‘somewhere’, was a common feature among those who were interviewed.

There is much evidence that the participants had made very strong connections during/through the course. Shafaq, who seemed very different from the others in the cohort (being a refugee from Iraq/Syria who entered the course partly to improve her English) revealed a surprising level of inter-connectedness during the course, from viewing someone as being initially annoying to eventually becoming her ‘twin’:

There was this guy who I hated the first day because I found him so annoying, so … I just didn’t like him in the first point and then during the activities I found out that he is just like my twin. So, we started to talk every day, every day, every day and we just like twin for the life now and we talk every day.

When asked to elaborate on the ‘twin’ aspect, Shafaq replied: ‘We shared the same … everything, actually the same life.’ This issue, of entering the course feeling disconnected and then realising how there are others that are (very) similar to you, was evident with the others we interviewed. A powerful ‘framing’ process did seem to have occurred, as if by ‘magic’; indeed, Shafaq referred to ‘This magic trick that UWC give us to build some stuff between us.’

Katie had been unsure what the purpose of the course was. However, she had a very definite view of what had happened over the 10 days.

First of all, this is a very big community. There are people from all sides of the world. There are people here who have all different kinds of stories and, in the sharing moments, we see that. And we see that we are really small, honestly.

Katie’s use of the metaphor ‘community’ was a common one, used by seven of the 12 interviewees, to frame how they had sensed the experience of interaction. In this instance we can see that the sense of a ‘very big community’ had become a ‘small community’. Katie implies here that she has learnt from ‘the sharing moments’ that the others, although from other parts of the world, has similar life-stories meaning that she now feels the group is smaller (closer?) than it seemed at the beginning. She was then asked what she meant by ‘small’, and replied that:

And we all know that, generally, but I think only when we are, like, facing other people that come from such different places, with such different stories and experiences, I think that’s the moment when we actually realise that we are really small.

The words ‘actually realise’ here are important, implying that Sophie has become conscious that although at first glance the group has ‘different stories and experiences’, they have a lot in common. She implied this when saying that:

Because everyone just comes from such different places. Everyone has different histories, different experiences. Someone already did this and others did that and sometimes we also have common interests.

Overall, Katie seems to have felt that the ‘big community’ had learnt that they have more in common that they thought. We can see that Katie had felt more connected with the others on the course when she later said that:

I think at school, the way we learn, it’s … it should be updated, because we’re in the 21st century; we’re in a world that’s more and more globalised. People have more and more connection with each other and we still go to school, at least in Portugal, to sit in a classroom.

The discovery that there are others who share the same hopes and concerns as you is an important part of the ‘framing’ process. Katie (like Shafaq) seemed quite surprised to find out during the course that there are other young people who think the same way as she does. Further, that seemed to be a spur to going back home and doing actions that she now knows others will be doing elsewhere:

I don’t know, I think in two weeks, it’s something that really changes our life and also gives us hope, because there’s also people that think the same way as us and maybe, on our regular cities, we don’t see them. Maybe because they don’t show themselves; maybe because they don’t exist. And here we see other people that, for example, are concerned about the global warming and stuff and it kind of gives us hope that they … we will all be back to our places. And … but we know that somewhere in the world, someone is actually doing something to try to solve the problem.

The point being made here about the participants ‘showing themselves’ does provide further evidence of a theatrical event having taken place even though they might feel it was an authentic one. In short, the course seemed to have provided a stage whereby the participants, as actors, could express their views and worries as a ‘community’, or ‘mini society’.

Discussion

Our study has looked into how the young people on the UWCSC had framed their reality of experience. Quite quickly they had sensed they had become a ‘small/little community’ or a ‘mini society’. This type of metaphor, expressing the building and forging of a close community, was very evident in the data. Many of our participants had stated that within the first three days, close bonds had been forged. Of course, we have no real way of knowing how all the participants sensed the drama or if they were simply playing the script, as projected to the participants before the course via the marketing material. Goffman’s earlier work, such as The Presentation of Self in Every-day Life (1959) had suggested that actors on the stage of everyday life can often manipulate the situation, adopting a persona or ‘mask’ that they think will serve their purposes (Manning, 1991, p. 70). We know that some of the participants on the UWCSC were intending to impress, to perhaps gain entry to the ‘Long Course’ therefore they had a reason to perform the script. Further, we have no way of knowing if all the participants sensed being on ‘stage’ or whether they stayed ‘backstage’. Indeed, they may have moved between the two, as implied by the comment made by Katie that it is her ‘normal’ life that is an act and during the course she had felt less of an ‘outsider’ or ‘actor’.

Currently we merely have the expressions of a minority of players and how they felt they had become more (inter)connected and felt more confident to go forward and take action. They did seem to have undergo a very strong experience. The metaphor ‘life changing’ was mentioned by three of the participants and might seem an over-dramatising of the situation, although the term was also used by previous studies into the UWC experience (Wilkinson, 2002; Branson, 2003; Wilkinson & Hayden, 2010).

It would be far-fetched to consider the UWCSC as a ‘total institution’ (Goffman, 1961), such as a prison or asylum, since such a situation requires the participants to be cut off the outside society for a considerable amount of time. However, we can see that the 10-day course does involve a degree of formal administration of the every-day life of its participants. Indeed, Bertha had exclaimed that ‘I haven’t had my watch on while I was here, or my phone so I had a really disorientated time, like I have no idea what time it is.’ This comment does point to a degree of ‘total’ immersion having gone on.

A key tenet of social constructionism is that action, or activism, is dependent on interpreting it as something that can occur because more people than yourself believe in it (Luckmann & Berger, 1964). This ‘framing’ of one’s own reality is an important element of making people connect with others, and creating a form of ‘collective consciousness’, and social solidarity. In this regard, the UWCSC not only brings young people together so they can recognise their commonality but also offers a platform (or ‘stage’) whereby the participants can share deeply their thoughts so that a sense of collective reality can emerge.

Katie is an important source of evidence. She had revealed to us a process and mechanism where previously she had been very disconnected and felt that people like herself either did not exist or simply kept themselves quiet. However, she now realised that there are others around the world like her and that had helped to uplift her spirits. Katie had begun to frame her own thinking and lifestyle as not ‘different’ or ‘unusual’ (maybe even ‘weird’) but similar to others outside her ‘regular city’. She (supposedly) went back home more confident, sensing herself as being a member of a ‘mini society’. It is worth noting that the study from universities in Hong Kong (Wright & Lee, 2019, p. 690) had also discovered a sense of isolation from others, and one DP alumni said of the local non-DP graduates that they have ‘completely different perspectives and completely different interests.’

However, we probably should be careful not to over-exaggerate the experience. We know little about the societal background of our participants, but we can guess that they have a similar connection with respect to having parents who value a global outlook. It is argued that parents who choose an ‘elite international schooling’ pathway for their offspring have a distinct cosmopolitan view and globalised ambitions. One view (Gardner-McTaggart, 2016, p. 22) is that ‘the international school serves the new “globalised class”, which is a modern and transnational elite as opposed to the historical national elite.’ The study by Wright and Lee (2019 p. 690) had reported that the IBDP graduates at university ‘are drawn together by shared experiences and world outlook.’

One study (Bunnell & Hatch, 2021) of an ‘elite traditional international school’ in Japan has shown that access is discretely guarded and allowed primarily for those who are already part of the ‘international community’. One may assume that those who send their children to a UWC are of an equal status, whilst the UWC’s selection process also acts to ‘guard the gate’ to allow access only for those who are perceived to have global citizenship/leadership potential. We also know that many parents have themselves had an international schooling experience and that is a ‘powerful factor in their choice of schools for their own children’ (MacKenzie et al., 2003, p. 311).

There is evidence that some of the participants had a shared worldview. Katie, for example, told of how she saw herself as ‘a citizen of the whole world’. She elaborated on this, explaining it was about her sense of every-day connectedness with other cultures, and her belief that we are a globalised society:

We are just in a world that’s more and more global every-day and I think I believe in that world as a whole, although some countries are still, like, kind of closed in each other. But I think I’m more a citizen of the world and I’m really open to all kinds of cultures.

Hence, our participants had arrived at the Short Course with much already in common in terms of outlook, character, values, and beliefs. They were probably more similar than they had initially thought or seemed. The course allowed them to come together, and socially interconnect, framing their sense of commonality. Barry was quite candid about the exclusiveness of the course saying that ‘there might be kids who would thrive in this environment, but they cannot afford to come here’. He also said how he ‘had friends whose friends went to UWC, so I know about UWC, but I don’t know if I would have found out about this movement if I didn’t have friends.’ In other words, the course is especially of benefit to those who can afford it and have a network of friends that allows them to know about it. In this context the course benefits those who are already quite privileged in terms of connections and social interaction.

Conclusions

We have begun to reveal, via Goffman’s (1974) Frame Analysis, how the UWC’s ‘Short Courses’ can offer participants opportunities for understanding through the experience of the 10-days that their past experiences are shared and are common to others. Our participants expressed how they felt they had changed, in a relatively short space of time. They felt more inter-connected and felt more confident and inspired. For them it did seem a life-changing experience, as was promised at the outset in the marketing materials. Of course, the fact that they knew the script arguably means we should cynically assume the framing of the experience involved a degree of acting or manipulation, as implied by Goffman’s, 1974).

There is enough intensity of emotional and rhythmic interaction, or drama, as a group, to enact some degree of transformation in terms of personal identity. This may be equally true of the ‘Long Course’ and boarding for two years at, say, Atlantic College in its isolated coastal St. Donat’s Castle location or the UWC in Japan near Mount Asama. Indeed, Bertha saw the course ‘as a preparation for the actual UWC experience.’ At the same time, Scott’s (2010) notion of the ‘reinventive institution’, where participants have agency and freedom but closely monitor each other might be more appropriate for the UWCSC. This offers pointers as to how the ‘actual UWC experience’ might be explored as an elite schooling experience.

We have begun to reveal how the participants of the UWCSC might sense they have become more inter-connected. The resulting emotional bond did seem very real to them. All our participants expressed ‘realising’ things. A form of solidarity does seem to have occurred, at least in the minds of the young people we talked to, through bringing them together in an intense 10-day period where they shared their histories, stories, and thoughts. At the same time, we need to be conscious of the reality that the participants probably already shared a common background and attitude, making the bonding process relatively easy.

The inter-connections being made on the course are seemingly both strong, and genuine. Also, the connections made during the course seem potentially long-term. As Barry said:

Because I now have connections in all the countries, and I know that if I go there, I have a friend there, we can meet up, and share a few days with … spend a few days there, so it became a part of me.

We know this is the essence of any elite schooling experience, forging potentially advantageous relationships and networks around the world (Kenway & Fahey, 2014). It would be important to further investigate how these relationships are utilised.

Last, we noted that one of the facilitators alluded to knowing that the participants stay in touch with each other and talk about their actions following the course:

Some participants don’t open up during the short course, stay in the background during the whole thing, but then you find them on Facebook and then you find them doing these things, and you’re like, you’ve never done this before, what make you … what makes you do this?

This points to the need for a longitudinal study, examining what the participants do both immediately after the course and in the future, once the drama was over. Tsumagari (2010, p. 292) had concluded that ‘The literature contains valuable, although limited, evidence of the long-term effects of international schooling on students’ Only by studying that sort of evidence can the transformational and unifying potential of the UWC experience, even within its Short Course version, truly be measured.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).