This dissertation aims to analyze the movement of curriculum reforms in elite private schools in the city of São Paulo as part of the broader process of educational and curriculum reforms underway in Brazil and in the world, in the last two decades. Although new curricular proposals arise in specific local contexts, recent studies highlight that socioeconomic processes in an increasingly connected world impact educational policies and curricula at the local, regional or national level. Amid this growing exchange of people, texts, and discourses, this dissertation interprets how ideas and pedagogical materials are appropriated within the circuit of educational institutions instead of framing them either as a direct expression of rigid global hierarchies or as self-standing discourses independent of economic relations.Engaging studies on educational and curriculum reforms, global history, and sociology of education, this thesis explores a wide range of sources (from international agencies and educationrelated civil society organizations to selected elite schools). By doing so, I attempt to historically understand the external and internal forces that drive curriculum reforms in private schools in São Paulo; additionally, I seek to understand how educational principles that circulate through public and private instances across different scales of time and space are actively appropriated and recontextualized in each of the analyzed institutions. In this manner, when taking a global perspective to discuss the social function of schools revealed in the new curricular proposals of five elite private institutions in São Paulo, this thesis aims at contributing to the debate about the future of the school and the formation of elites within the broader context of internationalization (or de-nationalization) of education.