Abstract
This article documents, describes and discusses the dynamics of an international school located in south Delhi, India. It discusses the means and ways via which the international school designs and delivers its curricular and pedagogic content that tend to shape and reinforce an element of ‘internationalism’ among its pupils. The international school form of education primarily embeds teaching and learning processes within the domain of the school as well as outside of it. While the school places enormous emphasis on the concept of ‘global’ or at times even ‘international’ to promote and brand itself, it is deeply rooted to the local and national conditions and cultures as well. This aspect of inter-mixing the global with the local and national is strongly emphasized by the school, whose stakeholders believe that the true spirit of internationalism lies in becoming ‘glocal’ and not simply global. The school as well as parents want their students and children to possess a holistic understanding of the world, and not an exclusive one. Thereby, it can be argued that there is a transition from the much-hyped era of globalisation to one of ‘glocalisation’. Thus, this system of schooling is critically analysed through this article, which centrally argues that the school functions in a manner that enables students’ global compatibility of body and mind, and aims to lend them a competitive edge in the global education and job market.
Introduction
Since the onset of neo-liberalism, the world has witnessed a steady growth of international schools. According to ISC Research, a school is considered to be international if it offers partly or wholly an English-medium curriculum in a non-English speaking country. ISC Research also considers a school to be international if it is located in a country where English is considered to be one of the official languages, if a school offers an English-medium curriculum along with the national curriculum of the country and, most significantly, if the school has an ‘international orientation’ (ISC Research, 2018). As noted by Hayden (2006), no single international organisation regulates usage of the term ‘international school’; nor are there any universal criteria to determine whether the term may be included in a school’s name. There are diverse reasons for schools choosing to label themselves as international, which may include the composition of their student body, the type of curriculum offered, the marketing strategies that the school adopts to promote itself, and the type of ethos and mission that a school is aligned to. Further, using cues from their study of a British elite school in South-East Asia, Bunnell et al (2020) argue that international schools defy an ‘exact’ or ‘consensus’ definition, though they may be identified as ‘schools with a global outlook, located mainly outside an English-speaking country delivering a non-national curriculum at least partly in English’ (Bunnell et al, 2020: 4). International schools in India that offer international curricula are schools that are fully private and do not receive any form of aid from the government. In India, there exists a diverse variety of schools described as international schools. Some identify themselves as international only by adding the term ‘international’ in the school’s name, without offering any international curriculum or global exposure. There are others that have received international accreditation (through, for instance, the Council of International Schools or the New England Association of Schools and Colleges), while others have been authorised by the International Baccalaureate and/or Cambridge International Education to offer one or more of their programmes. Another category of international schools in India are those that have been certified through the Recognition of an International Dimension in Schools (RIDS) programme, led by British Council Education, India. Schools that have received international accreditation, authorisation or some kind of international certification have existed in India for over sixty years, while schools that offer one or more international curricula have witnessed a massive expansion, particularly in the Kindergarten-grade 12 (K-12) sector.
Initially, international schools were established to accommodate a small section of internationally mobile classes (mostly expatriates) whose nature of work demanded long periods of stay in foreign countries. More recently, it is clear that international schools in India cater not only to such mobile classes but also to the aspirational and privileged middle classes residing locally: a trend that is also found in other countries. For instance, a study from Qatar has shown the kind of influence international schools can have on local students’ identity and career aspirations, as well as on choice of university based on its location (Kanan and Baker, 2006), while Wettewa’s (2015) comparative analysis of school choice conducted in four Sri Lankan international schools indicates that a majority of students in these schools are local residents of Sri Lanka, with parental choice of international schools being limited to a privileged minority of Sri Lankans. Wright and Lee (2019), in a Hong Kong study, considered the potential of an international curriculum, the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IBDP) along with qualifications from ‘world-class’ universities in Hong Kong, to enable local children to enter the ranks of a Global Middle Class characterised by professionals and managers. Bunnell and Hatch (2021) in a Japan-based study explored the admissions process followed by an elite traditional international school, which is experiencing a shift of its clientele from internationally mobile families to locally residing families. Ying and Wright’s (2021) work, meanwhile, focused on strategies employed by local ‘new rich’ Chinese families to enrol their children into top-ranked overseas universities through international schooling as well as academic counselling.
In the Indian context Sancho’s (2016) work in Kerala looks at the branding mechanism adopted by a school to become an international school in order to attract local elite classes. Other studies include Gilbertson’s (2014) work in Hyderabad, that of Sriprakash et al (2016) with an international school ‘on the edge of a major cosmopolitan Indian city’ (p4), and the work of Atterberry (2021) and Babu and Mahajan (2021) in Bengaluru. Factors contributing to the rise of international schools in India are numerous. We may argue that the rise in numbers of international schools in India is a consequence of the neoliberal economic policies and aspirations of the growing middle classes. The impact of globalisation on the education sector has created in the minds of social classes a perception of international schooling as a means to succeed on the global platform which has led to a surge in demand for international schools in the country. Indeed an idea that seems to be dominating the school education sector in India today is that a global education can serve as a pathway to being globally viable or compatible; this could also be an important reason for the rise of international schools in India post-2000. More important is that, in a world where ‘social hierarchies change, knowledge becomes a “symbolic capital’’ (Bourdieu, 1984) and knowledge workers appear to be high-value producers at the top of the social pyramid’ (Ball et al, 2010: 524). Thus, knowledge, education and other activities that a student is exposed to in an international school are believed to help them to become valued producers in the global market by developing global perspectives through ‘outstanding transferable skills, including critical thinking, research and collaboration’ (Cambridge Assessment International Education, 2020), thereby shaping them into globally-aware citizens.
This article focuses on a co-educational non-residential international school given a pseudonym Palmer International School (PIS) in south Delhi, India, which offers the Cambridge curriculum from Primary to A Level (K-12). PIS had its inception in April 2003. It is affiliated with Cambridge Assessment International Education, and is recognised by the Association of Indian Universities. It is governed by a private trust, which also manages a chain of private schools within and outside India.
The article draws on the Bourdieusian theoretical framework whereby, according to Bourdieu, an educational system has a crucial role to play in the reproduction of the social class structure since it is through the system of education that ‘hereditary transmission of cultural capital’ takes place (Bourdieu, 1986). The use of ‘reproduction’ here highlights how glocalisation is reproduced through international schooling. It is argued here that, while a combination of local and global awareness is already inculcated among children through the habitus of the family, the role of the school is critical in reproducing the kind of ‘global-local’ awareness that the parents in these families aspire to for their children. How the school enables the reproduction of such awareness is what the study seeks to understand.
In the last three decades or so, globalisation has become a catchword – just as the notion of development had been in the 1970s and 1980s. The term globalisation was popularised by the economist Theodore Levitt in the 1980s to inform understanding of the emergence of global economies and how they affect ‘production, distribution, marketing and management’ (Levitt, 1983). While economists looked at globalisation through the lens of economic factors such as production, distribution, marketing and management, sociologists aimed at understanding the social and cultural factors of globalisation such as consumption patterns, lifestyles, ideas and the like. Within the socio-cultural arena, globalisation has introduced new consumption patterns and lifestyles along with free exchange and mobility of goods, services, people and ideas (Stromquist and Monkman, 2014). For instance, Ball et al (2007) argue that ‘Globalisation is a heterogeneous process. It has economic, cultural and political dimensions, and is made up of erratic flows of capital, goods, services, labour and ideas (including policy ideas)’ (2007: x). It has paved the way for a ‘network society’ (Castells, 2004) wherein some educational qualifications have begun to be accepted globally and may also be ‘transferable between education systems’ (Cambridge and Thompson, 2004: 164). Such a consequence of globalisation is directly linked to changes in education systems across the globe whereby international schooling has increasingly attained prominence.
Scholars including Robertson (1994) and Francois (2015) have argued that globalisation falls short, however, of accurately representing local phenomena and culture, and while Giddens (2000) has pointed out that globalisation has been responsible for disseminating the local to the global, the term glocalisation was introduced to understand the synthesis between the global and the local. While globalisation has enabled local cultures, traditions and patterns of lifestyle to transcend global boundaries, the process of globalisation may at times lead to homogenisation, thereby adversely affecting the diversity that is present in the local (Francois, 2015). Glocalisation, meanwhile, ‘enables an integrative relationship between global systems and local cultures, communities, and societies, in various contexts of political, social, and economic collaboration’ (Francois, 2015: 62). Within the domain of education, glocalisation is playing an increasingly dominant role today. Indian schools, for instance, that offer international curricula are increasingly transforming themselves to become more accessible to those classes of people who value ‘globality’ but not at the cost of losing their local and national values.
Values and Ethos of the School
The Mission Statement and the yearbook (Almanac) of PIS lay down the values and ethos of the school well enough to express its aims and objectives. The Mission Statement intends the school (which has two branches in different locations): to foster in students integrity and the courage of conviction through their experiences at school. To develop in schools a healthy respect for and appreciation of different cultures, both local and global. To nurture in students an awareness of the environmental and economic issues of the contemporary world to prepare them for their role as global leaders.
It is clear from the Mission Statement that PIS tries to cultivate and maintain an atmosphere of mutual respect and appreciation for diverse cultures, irrespective of whether they are one’s own (local) or those of others (global). The school aims to make its students ‘aware’ of environmental and economic concerns that the world at large faces in present times, so that in the future they will be able to become ‘global’ rather than only local and national leaders. One may therefore infer that PIS aims to mould its students to become ‘glocally’ aware for the future by providing the facility of international schooling.
Likewise, the yearbook of PIS (the Almanac), the type of document which, according to Bunnell (2021), is often ignored by researchers, constitutes an important artefact which can foster notions of ‘solidarity’ and ‘social membership’ among students. The following extract from the Almanac can be seen as an example of Bunnell’s point, clearly demonstrating the kind of ideology that PIS seeks to promote: Fostering internationalism from an early age is important especially in children growing up in a global world. At PIS, students absorb internationalism through the curriculum, activities, exposure to the life and works of world famous personalities, exposure to world cultures through exchange programmes etc. Country presentations by students during the morning assembly encourage children to research the customs and cultures of different countries. In the process they learn to see the similarities that unite people and appreciate difference as the richness of world cultures.
The extract begins by making the point that internationalism as a way of life must be inculcated from childhood since today’s children are being raised in a world wherein the process of globalization has facilitated communication, cooperation and exchange of diverse sorts across not only national but also international boundaries. Thus, to live in a global world means that one must accept the existence of every culture that exists across the globe and not be ethnocentric in one’s judgement about others; the notions of ‘solidarity’ and ‘social membership’ among students will thus be ensured.
The extract then describes concisely the various curricular and co-curricular activities in which students in PIS engage, which enable them to inculcate ideas of internationalism as a way of life. In other words, PIS supports the development of international mindedness (Hill, 2012) which has been understood by Bunnell et al ‘as a collectivising and unifying “platform” that acts as a potential binding force, uniting young people with a sense of shared (global) concerns and responsibilities’ (2020: 3). Thus, international mindedness is inculcated in students of PIS through its pedagogy and diverse activities, which include morning assembly on multiple topics encompassing both the local and global, national and international exposure trips, and co-curricular activities. Schools worldwide offer an international curriculum with the aim of enabling students from a variety of national backgrounds to study together, and providing an education that is acceptable to higher education institutions globally (Hayden and Wong, 1997). The degree to which a curriculum is internationalised may depend on contextual as well as structural factors. To begin with, a school with a diverse population of students (national and international) may require a curriculum to be inclusive of diverse cultural perspectives and languages, and not be aligned to the education system of one country. Secondly, the geographical location of a school plays an important role in determining the extent to which a curriculum may be internationalised. For instance, a school situated in a commercial and international hub or in a cosmopolitan locality may try to introduce an internationalised curriculum with the aim of making the school accessible to the residents of such localities. Thirdly, the extent to which a school is recognised by educational institutions internationally can influence the internationalisation of its curriculum. Schools with international accreditation or partnerships with renowned international institutions may include international dimensions into their teaching methods and curricular content. Further, Yemini and Fulop have argued that ‘internationalisation in schooling takes on differing meanings and manifestations in developing versus developed countries, in curricular versus extra-curricular issues, and in organisational matters’ (2014: 2), with such diversities extending the debate regarding the concept of internationalisation in general with its wide range of meanings and interpretations.
According to Pathak ‘the quality of a school reflects the way its students think, feel and act; the way they grow up, and develop the faculties of learning . . . it is important that the children imbibe the ethos of the school, and grow up with radical, life-sustaining ideals’ (2013: 227). In a similar way, the everyday life of PIS according to the leadership team is organised in a manner that will inculcate among its students the values and ethos of the school, thereby helping them to grow up as meritorious and responsible adult citizens.
On paper, the curriculum of PIS is organized in such a manner that it helps in implementing the best global practices in education. A statement from the school’s Almanac reveals that its programmes seek to help students ‘address the challenges and needs of adolescence in an ever changing world’ (PIS, 2018-19: 35). Nonetheless, an exclusivist aspect of the school also comes to the fore through its everyday practices which aim at developing meritorious students. The idea of merit for a school such as PIS, as Pathak points out, is comprised of and mediated on the basis of a kind of cultural capital such as ‘etiquette’ and ‘certain kinds of skill’ (2013: 120), which on the one hand these students inherit from their families and on the other hand they acquire through such schooling practices.
Methods
The objectives that informed this research were firstly, to study the philosophy, goals, structures and processes of teaching and learning in PIS and, secondly, to explore how the curricular, co-curricular and pedagogical processes adopted in this international school may help produce and/or reproduce a ‘glocal’ orientation. The article thereby aims to understand whether an essential and interdependent relationship exists in this particular school between international schooling and production and/or reproduction of ‘glocal’ orientation.
The study on which the article is based takes an ethnographic approach and draws from in-depth interviews with 19 academic and administrative staff, and 29 senior grade (10, 11 and 12) Indian students. Interviewing non-Indian students was not a part of the research objectives. Senior grade students who had been part of the school since primary grades were selected due to their prolonged duration of association with the school, which enabled me to gather deep insights about their experiences and aspirations from their schooling. The parents of these students were all local Indian residents of Delhi whose occupational backgrounds ranged across sectors including family business, entrepreneurship, private school teacher and government employees. I conducted this study as an external researcher after approaching the school’s leadership team and being granted approval to conduct my fieldwork.
Before the in-depth interviews began, the semi-structured interview schedules were shared with the Vice Principal for her to read through them and see if there were any questions or terms that needed to be rephrased. A formal approach to sampling could not be employed since the leadership team required that teacher representatives should select students for the interviews. Maintaining equal proportions of students from each grade in terms of number and gender was therefore also not possible. Purposive sampling was employed in conducting in-depth interviews with administrative staff including the Principal, Vice Principal, Headmistress, Human Resource executive and two librarians. The purpose behind the selection of these informants was to gather detailed insights about the school, the kind of culture it promotes and what roles each interviewee plays in the functioning of the system and in promoting its culture. In addition to interviews, the other key to engage in thick description was observation. I employed complete observation because I did not directly participate in any school activity or event due to restrictions imposed by the leadership team. Data gathered from field observations and interviews were collected in the form of field notes, photographs and voice recordings respectively. Interviews were conducted in Hindi or English, depending upon the convenience of the informants, and while recordings in Hindi were translated and transcribed, those in English were only transcribed. Data analysis began with content analysis, whereby I analysed school magazines and the yearbook (Almanac) collected from the field site, followed by content analysis of the school website. This being a purely ethnographic study, I employed a theme-based method of data analysis. These themes were then elaborated upon with the help of narrative analysis, field notes and relevant literature.
Informants were assured in advance of interviews that their responses would be completely anonymous, confidential and used only for the purposes of the particular study. Moreover, the informants understood that they were free to refrain from answering any question they did not wish to answer. Verbal permission was sought from each informant before recording their interviews. Permission to interview students was granted by the school’s leadership team, who advised that parental consent was not required as the interviews were conducted on school premises. In order to respect confidentiality of all concerned, in this article the name of the school and the names of all informants are pseudonyms.
Findings
Rituals of assembly and ceremony
At PIS each section of the different grades and each school House are given an opportunity to conduct assemblies on diverse topics, national and international. Students can seek help from their class teachers and the school House managers in order to organize the assembly. It is expected that every student will take part in the assembly in order to display their ‘talent’, and develop ‘the spirit of group activity, leadership and value building’. PIS also invites parents to the assemblies in order to enhance communication between them and the school.
Every morning assembly at PIS begins with the Lord’s Prayer (‘Our Father . . .’) and ends with the Indian National Anthem. Although the school does not explicitly promote any particular ideology, an interesting amalgamation of religion and nationalism can be observed through the ritual of the assembly. It may be argued that assemblies have several resonances with regard to inculcating a spirit of appreciating plural cultures – something that is attained by reciting the ‘Lord’s Prayer’. There are assembly presentations on different events and occasions depending upon the school’s academic calendar. A ritual such as the whole school morning assembly thus becomes a part of ‘cosmopolitan learning’ as described by Rizvi (2009: 265), who further argues that such a phenomenon helps students to understand not only global but also local issues ‘within the broader context of the global shifts that are reshaping the ways in which localities, and even social identities, are now becoming reconstituted’ (2009: 254).
Similarly, ‘Scholar Badge Ceremony’, an annual award ceremony hosted by the school to felicitate students for various achievements, is also held during one of the assembly days. On one such occasion it was observed that in addition to teachers and parents there were a host of dignitaries present which included the Vice Chancellor of an esteemed Indian public university, the Chairperson of PIS, a member of the Managing Committee of the PIS Society, and a Retired Indian Administrative Service Officer; also in attendance was Romania’s Ambassador to India, whose daughter had been a student of the school for almost six years. The event began with lighting of the lamp, while the Saraswati Vandana (a Hindu mantra, or sacred hymn, glorifying Saraswati, the Hindu goddess of knowledge, wisdom and music who is widely worshipped by Indians, and recited in order to receive her blessings) was sung by some of the students. In a way, such features are commonplace in the school setting, whereby students and parents of multiple nationalities integrate with each other. However, it must also be noted that despite people from many parts of the world participating in a common platform, indigenous forms of cultural/religious practices are enacted without any hesitation, as exemplified by the reciting of the Saraswati Vandana.
As pointed out by Bunnell, ‘a simple act like holding a whole-school assembly may be useful to convey the school’s messages and points of information, yet it also acts as a form of control and builder of a sense of community or solidarity. Crucial to this act is that it transmits not only information but also the school’s values’ (Bunnell, 2021: 255). It may also be contended that such ‘interaction rituals’ as assemblies and Scholar Badge ceremonies which transmit the ‘expressive culture’ (ethos and values) of the school can indeed lead to the creation of ‘collective memory’ among participants in the rituals. Such activities thus become ‘a complex process of ritualization and socialisation’ (Bunnell, 2021: 256) for ‘glocal’ orientation. Bunnell’s arguments resonate well with the view of the Vice Principal who pointed out in the interview that: The school assembly, I don’t think the children feel they are important right now. But, I think they are important because it’s a moment where they all sit together, the principal talks and there is a oneness in the student body which is important. Also, they do listen to a bit of current affairs as well. Sometimes maybe the learning for the whole group is not immense but for individuals in the group [it] is there. It brings you all together and it kind of gives you a common feedback, talking about things, about something that might matter. Even if you change one person’s life it makes a difference. It’s the same with the assembly. (Vice Principal interview, 4 February 2020).
On the other hand, Pawan Anand, a twelfth grade student, pointed out that: School assemblies I would say are informative, helpful at times. If the topic isn’t nice sometimes it doesn’t make sense. And there are repetitions also at times. Like Gandhi Jayanti ke din [during the assembly on Mahatma Gandhi’s birth anniversary] it’s the same thing every year. They play only that South Africa story. All the festival assemblies are really fun (Pawan Anand interview, 23 October 2019).
The whole-school assemblies enable the school to achieve multiple goals: connect with the globally prominent classes of people, sing an indigenous/localized hymn, recite an internationally popular prayer, be counselled and attain technological know-how. We may contend that the recitation of a Christian prayer in English, singing the Saraswati Vandana or singing the National Anthem may essentially point towards a secular as well as ‘glocalised’ character of the school. However, we may also argue that exhibiting Indianness through the Saraswati Vandana and the National Anthem, in spite of the presence of people from diverse backgrounds, indicates ‘how dominant narratives become common sense’ (Babu and Mahajan, 2021: 295). Certain practices that are essentially religious become conflated with national identity creation (Srivastava, 1998; Benei, 2009; Sancho, 2016). On the other hand, it may also be contended that the assembly becomes an extended means for the school, apart from its conventional classroom exercises of teaching-learning to inculcate certain sets of skills, aptitudes and knowledge (‘glocal awareness’) on plural cultures or issues, many of which may not be fulfilled within the ambit of the classroom. In this respect, the Principal when interviewed argued that, although the theme or topic for any morning assembly would probably appear very simple or at times even be based on matters that are of national or local concerns, the interpretation that they try to bring to the same is glocal.
The ritual of morning assembly may be seen as a ‘celebration of the school as a community’ (Thapan, 2006: 57) and as an important aspect of the school’s routine. However, according to Thapan, while ‘rituals may be routinized, every routine may not be a ritual’ (2006: 63). For instance, certain ceremonies are organized on some special days such as Republic Day which is celebrated once a year. Celebration of such special days need not necessarily be considered as a ritual since they do not form a part of the everyday school routine. Moreover, the everyday life of a school also incorporates other activities (curricular and co-curricular) which constitute a school’s routine.
Curriculum and pedagogy
While one can appreciate the importance that the school attaches to a routine activity such as the assembly, the centrality of the pedagogy along with curriculum in the construction of ‘glocal orientation’ cannot be discounted, since ‘pedagogy is not the art of teaching; it is the savoir faire of the educator, the practical experience of the teacher’ (Durkheim, 1961: 2). For instance, according to Asiya (the English teacher for the Middle school), when interviewed, the scope of the Indian curriculum (CBSE – the Central Board of Secondary Education, one of the national level education boards in India, studied by tenth and twelfth grade students and administered by the Central Government of India in public and private schools) is very limited when compared with the IGCSE (the International General Certificate of Secondary Education offered by Cambridge). The IGCSE is studied by tenth grade students at PIS, who are taught to think (critically) and not just reproduce what is in the textbook. According to her experience, what students are taught in the tenth standard of the Indian CBSE Board is already taught to (much younger) students of fifth and sixth grades in IGCSE subjects.
On the other hand, Richa Kukreja (the school counsellor) whose daughter moved from a ‘regular CBSE school’ to PIS, argued that the former school offered limited exposure to students of diverse cultures and backgrounds, as the ‘kids majorly belonged to that area (north Delhi where the CBSE school is located)’, unlike the case in PIS. She stated that: Here she got to meet students who have travelled the world. Some of them were born in a different country and they came back and obviously they would join an international curriculum. She has made friends from so many different cultures. She has [a] plethora of experiences to learn from and this kind of exposure is going to sensitise her towards other cultures, and it’s going to make her learn about cultures which I wouldn’t have been able to do’ (Richa Kukreja interview, 7 November 2020).
Just as teachers appear to be appreciative of the school, so do students. Khushbu Garg, an eleventh grade student, felt that: PIS gives you [a] lot of exposure and it also helps you identify yourself like what you are capable of; such aspects are definitely less in CBSE as they prefer just doing the course and getting the marks. So that thing in this school is definitely better. And academically compared to CBSE we actually take something back from every class we attend (Khushbu Garg interview, 15 July 2019).
A tenth grade student, Atif Hussain, felt the same way. He too has been part of this school since kindergarten, and plans to pursue Hotel Management in Singapore and return to Delhi in order to continue the hotel business with his mother. Atif stated that ‘Whatever they [students of CBSE schools] do in 12th we [students of PIS] do in 10th, which gives us an edge that we do it much before them. And our school mostly focuses on English which as an international board it should do’.
Thus, Atif suggested that the content of the Cambridge curriculum followed in PIS is much advanced compared to the CBSE curriculum. As a result, according to Atif students in PIS are able to cover a much wider range and number of topics when compared to CBSE students, and students of PIS are ahead of students from a CBSE school as far as formal learning is concerned. It should of course be acknowledged that the learning that Atif referred to is restricted to curriculum content only, while learning can take place through multiple avenues.
Ayush, a tenth grade student, had a slightly different opinion, pointing out that: I feel it’s a myth that we get to better colleges than [with] CBSE. I mean every student gets to the same type of college. I feel it isn’t that big a task with admission through CBSE abroad. I feel personally you should be open to both because India also has good colleges. And in this [Cambridge] board the main disadvantage I feel is lack of access to Indian colleges. What I know is that the A Levels are not widely accepted. They [Indian higher education institutions] have a different criterion for admission of the A Level students to their institutes. There is a slight advantage here [in PIS] for us; if I was in CBSE I would have been still struggling. This board [Cambridge] gave me the opportunity to go away from Science and choose Commerce in class 9th. (Ayush Srivastava interview, 8 November 2019).
Through Ayush’s slightly contrasting opinion, what he suggests is that there is no added advantage offered by the Cambridge curriculum for entrance into better quality colleges or universities. The international curriculum does provide students with avenues to easily apply to multiple foreign universities, but it does not guarantee access to the best institutions abroad and definitely not in India, where there is limited acceptance of A and AS Level qualifications. According to him, the only ‘slight’ advantage that the international curriculum offers is wide options in the choice of disciplines from ninth grade, whereas in CBSE subject options are offered from eleventh grade onwards and ‘two years for a subject is very less particularly when you are starting fresh’.
Thus, it can be seen how the curriculum followed by PIS becomes an essential component of its pedagogy. From what was reported by the interviewees, it can be inferred that irrespective of its limited focus on teaching about India, students and teachers consider the Cambridge curriculum superior to the Indian CBSE curriculum. Further, it can be observed that there is a constant comparison between the Indian system of education and the international form of education, whereby the international form along with the pedagogy followed by PIS is given much greater weight. However, the contrasting view of one of the students (as noted above) did suggest that, as far as admission into foreign institutions is concerned, that can also be achieved by a student of a school offering an Indian curriculum, though the international curriculum may make the path easier.
The Lingua Franca of PIS
With respect to the languages offered by PIS, it was observed that from grades five to eight along with Hindi being compulsory, Sanskrit is offered as an option, together with foreign languages. Here again is an attempt at demonstrating Indianness (Benei, 2009) together with internationalness. Such a facility suits the classes of parents who wish their children to become ‘glocal’ citizens without compromising their local and national identities. Nonetheless, it was observed that from grade nine onwards, though Hindi remains a compulsory subject, Sanskrit is no longer offered as an option while the foreign languages (French, Spanish and German) retain their place in the timetable. On being asked about the reason for not keeping Sanskrit as an option in the higher grades, the Vice Principal explained that, in the higher grades, the demand for foreign languages is much higher than for Sanskrit. Herein, one can witness how education becomes commodified to the extent that services including subjects offered are being governed by the protocols of demand and supply.
Over the years, a substantial body of literature has emerged that has discussed the centrality of English language for education in the Indian context in order to facilitate global preparedness. For instance, Roy suggests that ‘the efficacy of English had also been acknowledged by colonial administrators from the very outset’ (1993: 42). In the definition of international school proposed by Bunnell et al, the emphasis was on offering a ‘non-national curriculum, at least partly in English’ (2020: 4). In the case of PIS, English is considered to be the school’s first language, as well as the only language for communication between teachers and students, and between students themselves within the school premises.
But this does not mean that English, the lingua franca in many parts of the world, is the only language that is given weight at PIS. As per the PIS Almanac, a global citizen is supposed to be compatible with people belonging to different socio-economic and cultural backgrounds, as well as appreciative of global cultures that include languages; the significance of foreign languages cannot therefore be discounted. Although languages are an integral part of the learning curriculum, there is a sense of enthusiasm as well as the domain of self-experience that counts among students. Sarika Jain, an eleventh grade student, explained that she had selected Spanish and French since she has some knowledge of Spanish language from her earlier school days in England, and she chose French because the alternative to French was Hindi and she was not willing to take up Hindi. Similarly, Vaishali (a student) opted for French as she happens to be a regular visitor to France. Vaishali noted that she feels good to ‘actually be able to communicate’ with the native people there and cherished ‘the school weekly assemblies every Tuesday and Friday’, as well as appreciating the fact that the school encourages students to lead assemblies on national days of different countries such as Bastille Day, the national day of France. On the other hand, while Atif (the student) had initially opted for German at PIS, he had to opt out and take Hindi instead due to the burden of other subjects. On being asked why he chose Hindi after dropping German, he had a very interesting explanation, contending that he plans to come back to India later on after completing his higher studies and ‘spend [his] whole life here’.
Enabling a ‘glocal’ outlook through exposure trips
While PIS takes initiatives to promote the ethos of ‘study-abroad’, this section seeks to understand how the exposure trips at PIS are organized with special focus on the idea of ‘exchange’, where exchange means not only mobilities of people, goods and services but more importantly being part of a collective shared experience that involves an exchange – of ideas, cultural forms, customs and conventions, languages, forms of leisure and so on. That privilege is the primary factor which enables the manifestation of such ‘exchanges’, thereby allowing few individuals belonging to particular classes to be a part of such ‘networks’, is the embedded principle of the discussion. As students venture out on these trips alone (without parents), they learn to ‘handle things’ on their own.
Students highlighted that the exchange programmes are well promoted at PIS. Not only do they allow for an intermixing of people and socialize students in relation to those cultural forms, they instil within them a sense of confidence, readiness, and levels of compatibility as well as respect for diversities. Although one student did talk about ‘differences in culture’, she was quick to acknowledge that sharing and exchanging in the true sense of the term is witnessed and facilitating mutual respect for each other’s culture is the prime motive behind these exchanges. In a way such activities also promote an element of awareness at both global and local levels.
Atif (a student) noted that ‘When you go abroad, these exposures and experiences make you more versatile to adapt to more cultures and traditions wherever you go. So it doesn’t make you stiff and then do whatever you are used to doing. It makes you more adaptable basically.’ According to Atif, one can shed one’s ‘stiffness’, if there is any, and be more adaptable into other contexts. Interestingly another student, Rajyavardhan, observed that he had already travelled to every part of Europe and hence his participation is contingent on the location of the exchange programme. Many of these students have already travelled across the globe or have been globally mobile on account of their families. Hence, socialization and exposure through travel programmes are not attained first-hand from the schools alone; families also play an important role. This reflects the fact that many students at PIS belong to families who come from those privileged classes – who have travelled across the world or are exposed through having relatives and friends abroad. Most of the students, therefore, have already ‘shed their stiffness’ and have acquired a certain amount of awareness from an early age before joining PIS. The school simply and subsequently reproduces their privilege by socializing them into such practices and ideals.
Students’ responses show that care is taken by PIS to ensure that students have exposure to host countries’ cultural practices including language, dance, food and even values, if not in their academic traditions. Hence, much care is taken to promote foreign languages within the curriculum, to ensure that students ‘feel at home’ in countries other than their own. Exchange programmes are very commonly conducted in various schools across the length and breadth of India, and are not specific to this school alone or to any other international school. However, the practice of each student residing with the family of a student in the host country was a novel idea which was unheard of in the Indian context prior to conducting this research, the idea being to give students a deeper understanding of diverse cultures as they learn about the world and its people.
Unlike foreign exchange programmes which involve cohabitation with residents of the host countries, however, the local and national exposure trips or camps restrict students to brief ‘visits’ to certain hill stations, villages and historical sites. For instance, a student, Ayush, explained that they engaged in community service at Mukteshwar (a village in Uttarakhand, India) for just ‘one day’. He did, though, exhibit sensibilities regarding the hardships that people in the villages face with regard to access to basic amenities such as water and food, poor access to healthcare and long travels to hospitals, and believed the trip was an eye-opener.
Students’ narratives thus reflect upon the fact that such experiences act as an ‘eye-opener’ for them, by taking them away from the comfort zones of their urban households and lifestyles. It is also interesting to note that PIS ensures that the rural interaction is limited to brief visits, unlike those to European countries which span almost a fortnight.
According to Bunnell, ‘Such experiential learning is considered transformative (Hayden & McIntosh, 2018), but awaits full sociological theorization’ (2020: 16). Such activities become important ‘interaction rituals’ which can generate positivity in the minds of the students and thus become important elements of the ‘expressive culture’ of the school. More so, such ritual practices also generate a kind of ‘collective effervescence’ (Durkheim, 1984; 1995) by making the student community come together and participate in the same activity and thereby develop a common thought process (for example, the idea of charity) related to such activities. A contrasting opinion has, however, been put forward by Sriprakash et al (2016), who argue that practices such as community service might ideologically seem to encourage concepts of ‘equality’, but in reality strengthen inequality between the privileged and under-privileged, as well as lead to the reproduction of classness because they make the privileged perceive themselves as better-off than those to whom they offer their help. What also needs to be kept in mind in the context of the present study is that many students reported opting for community service as part of their extra-curricular activities, in order to achieve an extra edge during college or university admissions abroad. Additionally, the job prospects for such students may become better due to their global exposure and lived experience (Rizvi, 2000). According to these students, foreign colleges and universities expect their student applicants to have prior exposure to activities involving community service. In this context Koh points out that ‘Students who participate in study abroad view in pragmatic terms that a short stint of studying abroad looks good on their CV and speaks well of their exposure to intercultural and cosmopolitan experiences. This “biographical project” and accumulation of “an economy of experience” are deemed to give the student added labour market advantage (Heath, 2007)’ (2014: 27).
Conclusion: The Makings of a ‘Glocal’ Citizen
While PIS places enormous emphasis on the concept of ‘global’ or at times even ‘international’ to promote and brand itself, it is deeply rooted in the local and national conditions and cultures. This aspect of inter-mixing the global with the local and national is strongly emphasized by PIS whose stakeholders believe that the true spirit of internationalism lies in becoming ‘glocal’ (Francois, 2015) and not simply global. This is also accomplished by promoting musical concerts, exposure to classical dance forms, theme-based assemblies, educational trips and adventure camps, and celebrating National Days of importance for India and foreign nations. Also, PIS houses a Fine Arts department which enlightens students on Indian folk and classical songs and dances, just as students learn Warli, Madhubani and other folk/classical painting styles in their art lessons. The prime emphasis therein lies on inculcating deep-rooted indices of moralities. In this context, Yemini and Fulop (2014) argue that although there are no single-consensual pathways to achieve and accomplish internationalisation within the ambit of schooling, standard approaches lay the emphasis on gauging a variety of perspectives by acknowledging international similarities, respecting and protecting intercultural differences and commonalities.
While there is a sense of an aspiration of being integrally linked to global networks, mobilities, services and lifestyles, a deep sense of nostalgia and connect for their ‘homeland’ also works in a number of cases for such privileged classes of parents. Hence, while global mobility does lead to a ‘quality’ life (according to the interviewees here) that they are able to achieve on account of their privileged backgrounds, at the same time it is the same set of people who harbour a sense of parochialism as well as being overtly assertive of their primordial social identities. The school helps them achieve such pursuits seamlessly. Herein lies the importance of international schooling for such classes of people who are or have been globally mobile, who want their children to do the same and thereby become ‘glocal’ citizens.
Footnotes
Funding
The author received a Centrally Administered Full-Term Doctoral Fellowship offered by the Indian Council of Social Science Research, New Delhi, India.
