Moving from elite international schools to the world’s elite universities

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore how elite International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IBDP) schools in China function as a channel for international student mobility to leading universities around the world. Design/methodology/approach – To achieve this, the authors conducted a mixed-methods study combining quantitative analysis of 1,622 students’ university destinations and qualitative analysis of interview data from five high performing and high tuition fee IBDP schools in China. Findings – Results indicate that the IBDP in China can be conducive to a form of “elite international student mobility” for some students with 30 percent of participants attending one of the top 50 ranked universities globally. As an explanation, interview data points to the strong reputation of the program, the provision of structured opportunities for students to demonstrate “additional skills,” and the abundant resources of elite schools. Originality/value – The authors provide a critical discussion about the implications of the IBDP’s function for “elite international student mobility” in connection with social contexts surrounding these international International Baccalaureate schools in China. In so doing, the discussion tackles two issues from a critical perspective: the role elite international schools in accelerating educational inequalities and challenges to authentic learning experience when elite schools play the “university admissions game.”

Internationalization of Higher Education Research in East Asia

“…Research findings on higher education-labor market alignment, a mainstay of research in Western universities, will experience a conceptual reworking as East Asia cases come to inform mainstream theory. Moreover, there remains considerable scope to research the extent to which East Asian contexts can contribute to addressing the long-standing issue of inequality in access to higher education (Lee and Wright 2016;Wu 2017). High quality and innovative research on these core issues will be crucial in enhancing the international influence of the East Asian higher education research community.…”

Developing and institutionalising the ‘Internationally-Minded School’: The role of the ‘Numerous Fs’

“…the body of ‘international schools’ offering one or more of the four IB programmes (Lee and Wright, 2016), since it is arguably central to identifying their ‘Institutional Primary Task’. As argued by Lee and Wright (2016, p.120), these ‘schools are especially notable for their global orientation in terms of student and staff body, curriculums offered (ie the IBDP), and the destinations of graduates for university studies’. At the same time, the concept of IM as practised in schools tends to be viewed within a narrow and rather simple lens of activity.…”

Exploring enduring employment discrimination in favour of British and American teachers in ‘traditional international schools’

“…In re-visiting the topic, we argue that there is now a need to go substantially beyond Canterford's (2003) economics-based lens of inquiry, as there is much more at play. It has been argued (Resnik, 2012) that the emergent field of 'international schooling' is ripe for sociological inquiry, and we will begin to re-examine the still evident 'segmented labour market phenomenon' by applying the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu's Social Field Theory (Hilgers and Mangez, 2014) to discuss how and why the field, certainly in its elite, traditional mode of operation (Lee and Wright, 2016), continues to be dominated by certain actors emanating from just a few English-speaking nations. Although we recognise that not all educational researchers find Bourdieu's concepts to be clear or useful (Sullivan, 2002), we believe his analytical tools to be useful for recognising power relations within a field, which ultimately leads to discrimination, in forms that are not recognised, or which are misrecognised.…”