Keeping doors open: transnational families and curricular nationalism

Abstract

This paper reviews sociological literature to explore the challenge transnational populations pose for nation-based curriculum, and vice versa. With increasing access to dual citizenship and temporary migration, more people are living transnational lifestyles. This poses new challenges in raising the transnational child. Transnationalism has emerged 'bottom-up' from individualised choices and circumstances rather than 'top-down' through institutional strategy. As a result, education sectors are yet to respond with a reoriented curriculum that can accommodate polycentric lives. This paper adapts Beck's critique of methodological nationalism and proposes a parallel concept in the curricular nationalism underpinning much official curriculum. It then reviews literature reporting on three curricular experiments that seek to cultivate citizenships above and beyond the nation. While such transcendent designs on citizenship unsettle curricular nationalism, they fail to address the specificities of transnational child's memberships both here and there. The pedagogic principle of 'connectedness' is retooled as a pragmatic way forward.

An overview of systematic reviews: International mindedness as a component of the IB Diploma Programme’s expansion

“…Interestingly, the IBDP high-stakes testing (Hayden & McIntosh, 2018; Metli et al, 2019) and holding students accountable could be argued to have had much to do with shifting student focus away from the importance of IM (Saavedra, 2016). The possibility of the IBDP working within national education requirements supported IB expansion into national education systems, rather than the possibility of implementing IM in IBDP curricula (Belal, 2017; Doherty, 2018; Hara, 2018; Poonoosamy, 2016; Saavedra, 2016; Wasner, 2016). In fact, Poonoosamy’s (2016) research made explicit the IB expectation that students ‘relate first to their own national identity’ (p 586).…”

“…Although beneficial in ways noted above, expansion of the IBDP has also led to tensions with the IB mission and produced challenges for the IB with regard to implementation of IM (Gardner-McTaggart, 2016; Hayden & McIntosh, 2018; Jaafar et al, 2021; Lai et al, 2014; Poonoosamy, 2016; Tarc & Beatty, 2012), despite the IB’s belief that IM should be interpreted within the situated context of IB schools (Belal, 2017). And Doherty’s (2018) research, in exploring the appeal of IB programmes when situated in national education systems, noted that IM is ‘filtered’ through national school and teacher interpretations and therefore may be interpretative in ways that are not always entirely consistent with IM and IB intentions (p 209). This lack of consistency also helps to explain why findings from research argued that tensions materialize between what the IB is promoting on paper, and how IM is received by national and local populations (Gardner-McTaggart, 2018; Jaafar et al, 2021; Lai et al, 2014; Poonoosamy, 2016; Tarc & Beatty, 2012).…”

“…Poonoosamy did acknowledge that the IBDP cannot be held entirely responsible, since the ‘global world [is] becoming increasingly Western’ (p 586) – a point later reinforced by Gardner-McTaggart (2018) who stated that there exists an ‘“English” cultural capital’ (p 151) within international education systems. Pushback on the IB and the concept of IM does not change the fact that the IBDP’s intercultural and international worldwide reach appeals to a multitude of students of varying socioeconomic levels (Doherty, 2018; Metli et al, 2019).…”

“…This matters because the IBDP is an ever-expanding global education program (Belal, 2017; Dickson et al, 2018; Gardner-McTaggart, 2016; IBO, 2022b; Jaafar et al, 2021) that is offered also in public education systems (Saavedra, 2016; Hara, 2018; Tarc and Beatty, 2012). The broad appeal of the IBDP as a transnational program (Doherty, 2018), whose curriculum is designed to transcend national borders (Doherty, 2009), makes this overview of current systematic research worthy of consideration.…”

Transnational meritocracy?

“…Educational ideologies are an important part of the normative load that travels with transnational parents. These ideologies can help frame a careful double game of strategy and risk management in order to 'keep doors open' (Doherty, 2018) and thus maintain the child's option of going 'back and forth, or to move on to other countries' (Castles, 2009, p. 53).…”