Cultivating the cosmopolitan child in Silicon Valley

Abstract

How does cosmopolitanism emerge in regions characterised by diversity and difference? This article examines the ways parents living in Silicon Valley, California seek to realise, maintain and manage ‘cultural and political multiplicities’ in their efforts to create cosmopolitan environments and sociality for their children and families. Grappling with the tension between cultivating academic achievement and cosmopolitan sociability, I explore how parents create opportunities for cosmopolitanism experiences and spaces, moving away from schooling towards education through international travel and philanthropy. The article reflects upon the challenges parents face as they attempt to realise their good intentions, ideas and attitudes to facilitate cosmopolitan sociability in a region where diversity is located in everyday interactions and encounters. I conclude by drawing connections between changing practices and how structural constraints influence parents’ approaches to cultivating cosmopolitanism over time.

Keywords:

• cosmopolitanism
• consumption
• diversity
• education
• parenting
• children

Notes

1. As is standard ethnographic practice, I use pseudonyms throughout this article to reference participants. Young people quoted in the study have selected their own names and voices of young people (as opposed to their parents) are also intentionally used throughout the article to highlight young people’s agency as well as the forms of cultural reproduction taking place through the education system.

2. One of the key factors that shaped the increase in foreign-born individuals in the region was the creation of the H1B Visa in 1990 to address high technology skills shortages (Saxenian 1999). The vast majority of these visas, at least in Silicon Valley, were issued to Indian, Taiwanese and Chinese applicants (Gower 2011).

3. While parents receive individual scores of their children that they may use to compare with their grade-level peers, the school-level data are measured at the aggregate, with schools receiving a score as low of 200 to a high of 1000. The Academic Performance Indicator scores (2011–2012) are also calculated by ethnic/racial, socio-economically disadvantaged, English learner, and include differentiations such as Black or African American, American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, Filipino, Hispanic or Latino, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, White, Two or More Races, Socio-economically Disadvantaged, English Learners and Students with Disabilities. If groups are numerically significant, then differences in API scores are recorded and made publicly available in individual student reports and on the API and California Department of Education website: http://www.cde.ca.gov/ta/ac/ap/apireports.asp. Within the study I carried out the largest numbers of schools scored in the 900s and parents knew the schools that hit ‘1000’. As a general rule, schools with ‘Asians’ score a bit higher than the ‘White’ population of the schools and, in many schools in the region where I carried out research, whites (or Euro-Americans) are a minority.

4. Three laws are viewed as directly impacting the educational landscape in California: Proposition 13, the Serrano vs. Priest court case and Assembly Bill 65 Proposition 13 shifted the burden for schools and education costs from property tax revenue to the state government who turned to increasing income and corporate taxes and other proposition measures passed by Californians at the ballot box. However, in times of recession, this income ebbs and flows, impacting the amount of revenue available for school funding. Serrano vs. Priest, initiated in 1968, was a class-action lawsuit by parents with students in the Los Angeles school district against the California state treasurer. It argued that the current forms of funding for education created unequal conditions for students from poor neighbourhoods and communities because there were disparities in income by districts. The subsequent legislation sought to create more equity between the amount of money raised by different school districts to less than 100 per child that, in turn, created more equality for students and taxpayers across the districts. The legislation gave school districts 4 years [1978] to rework their funding structure and, in the interim, passed Assembly Bill 65 in September 1977. The Bill provided provisions to give tax relief and higher funding to low wealth districts and requires high wealth districts to share their funds with low wealth districts. However, the legislation did not restrict the amount that could be raised through taxes and the introduction of Prop Thirteen thus curtailed the ability of high wealth districts to raise funds and redistribute to low-wealth districts.

5. One-fifth of the families who formed the core of this study lived in small rental apartments or run down houses to access the local public schools or what was known as ‘good schools’. Once ‘in’, many of the children were aware of their parents sacrifice and expressed some awareness of the need to perform and succeed in light of these choices.

6. This mirrors a broader trend in the United States to acknowledge the role of other institutions in young people’s learning (Goodland 1984). From afterschool programmes and summer camps to museums, libraries and community centres, a range of youth-serving cultural institutions are present in the learning ecologies of young people. Such cultural institutions and community-based organisations represent an alternative infrastructure of support, including the use of digital media and technology. See also a review of afterschool programmes and other cultural resources by Herr-Stephenson et al. (2011) and Sefton-Green (2012).

7. From conceptualisations of ‘learning lives’, the development of an identity as a learner and a focus upon interest or passion-driven learning (Dreier 2003; Erstad et al. 2009; Ito et al. 2010), educators and educational policy-makers are increasingly recognising the educational opportunities within and across a range of contexts that constitute young people’s everyday lives (Cole 1996; Horst, Herr-Stephenson, and Robinson 2010; Barron 2004, 2006; Lave and Wenger 1991; Lemke 2000; Gutierrez and Rogoff 2003; Salen 2006).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Heather A. Horst

HEATHER A HORST is Principal Researcher Fellow and Director of the Digital Ethnography Research Centre in the School of Media and Communication at RMIT University.