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Globally Elite

A Word on “Global Citizen”

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Following the analysis of the elite school arena and furthering the research for this project, I recognized that I was continuing to question a staple factor seen within elite schooling systems (especially within international/foreign elite schools) which is Global Citizen Education or curriculums alike which allow students to become a  “Global Citizen” or gain their “Global Citizenship” status through education and application of a seemingly well-rounded world knowledge (i.e. global culture studies, social service organizations, global perspectives, etc).

During some discussions in class, we have dug deeper into what exactly it means to be “elite” or rather, the very conditions of the elite/eliteness- in special regard to schooling and the respective education systems. I aim to pull the focus toward the links between eliteness with becoming a “global citizen” and how/why this endeavor is associated with neoliberal ideology, the overall perpetuation of class stratification, and elite saviorism. 

What exactly determines or creates a Global Citizen? What does it mean to be one, to become one? What exactly is this claim? 

When starting my research for this post, I had one primary initiative: defining/exploring the notion of a “global citizen”. While the definitions of this term range in phrasing and buzz words, the definitions are all relatively similar. “A global citizen is someone who is aware of and understands the wider world (humanity)– and their place in it. They take an active role in their community and work with others to make our planet more peaceful, sustainable, and fairer” (oxfam.org). Global citizens often have ethical principles and responsibilities that guide them in this pursuit. This framework appears in elite schooling systems in the form of school pillars, through their motto or a message from a school leader. Oftentimes, via the school website or an advertisement, the fact that their curriculum focuses on the global scale and that their students will become globally aware serves as a selling/recruiting point. 

Why is this such a marketable goal and what actionable steps are elite schools participating in to ensure that their students are “‘good’ global citizens”?

 

At the Croft School, an elite school in Chile (a democratic nation), students feel expressly proud about their global citizen status and their knowledge of global affairs. Despite this citizenship, when asked about their own awareness of their social class in relation to others, or when asked about how the Croft School has shown skills to best interact with those who differ from them (culturally, socially, politically, and economically) the answers seemed limited and/or unfocused. One student could only recall interacting hands-on with an individual who was of lower social class during a facilitated volunteer session. Another spoke about how the Croft School works to keep students in Chile, instead of studying or traveling abroad due to attempts at becoming even more elite within the nation by having their students stay local to become the highest performing on the PSU exam. 

The PSU exam is the Prueba de Seleccion Universitaria which is a standardized test Chilean students take to gain access to university studies (both in Chile and internationally). This act deters students from traveling across borders to other global spaces and delineates the ideology of becoming cognizant/capable of participating in cultures that diverge from their own culture, intersectional identities, biases, and normalcies. A student called Cristobal stated their curriculum in practice looks like documentary-watching, reading/reviewing essays, and listening to news stories on Global issues. After these activities, a discussion follows where normally folx feel pretty comfortable when speaking. When asked about the skills acquired from these practices, the main take-away was to inform and educate yourself of different cultures before getting into them or analyzing them. 

Another student from the Croft school stated, “My school is kind of a culture itself… it is very different from the rest of Chile”. This lends itself to the fact that the Croft school already is unique in its eliteness, privilege, and is aware of its isolation/difference from the rest. However, this nuance is not always accounted for in relation to their social class position, power position, and history of eliteness. Because of this, there becomes a blurred line between learning about global differences.  Furthermore, the Croft school website lists the Cambridge curriculum which they follow, and within it is a section titled, “Global Perspectives and Research”. Per the syllabus plans, students are assured they will develop critical thinking skills and be able to think broadly about global issues, policies, and frameworks. Along with this, the curriculum website has a subheading section right under the “Global Perspectives and Research”  which is titled, “Benefits for learners and teachers”. Additionally, the Croft website lists, “increasingly assumed regional and international leadership roles-” from their students as “-befitting its status as a stable, democratic nation”. 

All of these instances do point out how more practical, focused skills are needed for a realistic and wholly equitable experience on the global stage. However, the actualized practice does not match up to the necessary skillset. The political, economic, and societal standings of Chile reflect the implementation of this curriculum as well as how it is implemented. In  

Assert that while participating in critical democracy underscores the vitality of ethical values, social duties, and being an active citizen, the neoliberal discourse prioritizes instead a market-oriented practice that focuses on self-investment and increased profits. (Pais and Costa, 2017).

The implementation of GCE and curriculums alike have the goal of moving into a world where we are apart of a separated class of basic “humanity”, the question then becomes how is there accountability for nuance, cultural relativism, and deeply thought-out practical skills for making this a lived and practiced reality for all where things are diverging uniquely all over the globe. 

 

How can the need for global awareness be supported by a framework that decenters eliteness? We must visit the root of this uprising issue where business bridges into education, having students act as consumers who portray education as a personal investment, seeking out the highest-earning capacity. (Pais and Costa, 2017) This is common for elite schooling systems and is clearly reflected by the advertisement of the “benefits” and valuable personal leadership facilities one is contracted to receive from becoming a global citizen via the given curriculum.
This endeavor could reflect the benevolence and drive to be of help to others despite their geographical separations, yet this has not been and is not always the immediate or practical outcome meaning while the idea of global citizenship reflects one of community, it really only privileges a certain group of people.  (Pais and Costa, 2017) 

To reform and answer these difficult questions, I lead you to ponder on who is gaining what from these installations within elite schooling education. It is all of our responsibility to understand how such powerful elite institutions can hold themselves accountable for faithfully being dedicated to social justice, global support, and equity for the good of humanity rather than for self-profit, performatives, or to perpetuate the saviorism and isolation that often comes with eliteness.

 

 

Sources:

“Cambridge Global Perspectives™.” Cambridge Assessment International Education, 2021, www.cambridgeinternational.org/programmes-and-qualifications/cambridge-global-perspectives/Chapman, D. D., T. Ruiz-Chapman, and P. Eglin. “Global Citizenship As Neoliberal Propaganda: A Political-Economic and Postcolonial Critique”. Alternate Routes: A Journal of Critical Social Research, Vol. 29, 1, http://www.alternateroutes.ca/index.php/ar/article/view/22450.

Pais, Alexandre, and Marta Costa. “An Ideology Critique of Global Citizenship Education.” Critical Studies in Education, vol. 61, no. 1, 2017, pp. 1–16., doi:10.1080/17508487.2017.1318772. 

“University Selection Test-PSU in Chile.” www.chileeducation.info, www.chileeducation.info/tests/entrance-examination-for-higher-education.html.

“What Is Global Citizenship.” Oxfam GB, www.oxfam.org.uk/education/who-we-are/what-is-global-citizenship/.

Listening vs Reading, The Difference in Perception

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During my research process, I started out by reading through all of the interviews with the students and alums assuming that would be the extent of my research. I quickly formed an idea in my head of what each student was saying and how they were reacting to the profound questions posed about social class, student life, and school curriculum. However, after hearing from some other students in our class about how important it was to watch the video of the interview, I decided to go back and listen. I assumed that my perspective on the student would not change, after all, how different could a video interview be from just reading it? I immediately learned that I was wrong. I discovered just how necessary it is to listen to an interview, especially if it contains deep questions relating to one’s personal life or controversial topics. An audio recording holds subtle nuances and tones of voice that can completely change one’s idea of what an interviewee is saying. 

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My first student interviewer talked a lot about sports and the time he spends committed to his team. While reading through his interview, I substantially mistook his explanation of sports at the Croft School. Reading through his interview made it seem that this student was deeply committed to his sport, and his life revolved around athletics and academics. His competitive spirit pushed him to constantly try and work harder than his peers, and he never took a break for himself. In my mind, I pictured his student as a serious and hardcore student-athlete. However, when I heard him speak, my perceptions of who he was completely changed. Many of the answers to the questions had a tone of sarcasm I had not picked up on before, and even a few jokes that I assumed were meant to be an earnest comment. My student was more of a laid-back, comedic guy who no doubt worked very hard but did not take himself too seriously and had a completely different personality than what I had originally expected. The sarcasm was a crucial part of understanding my student’s answers and was almost impossible to pick up out of only reading through the questions. 

Another important aspect of watching these interviews was the facial expressions. This did not lead to the same level of alteration that listening to the conversations did, however, the facial expressions of my interviewee undoubtedly played a role in my understanding of the points they were trying to make. Listening to my interviewee talk was one thing, but closely monitoring their facial expressions was another. I quickly picked up on subtle eye rolls, smiles when the student was joking, or a more serious expression when my student was explaining how he really felt. 

Expressions like these helped me decode what my student was saying

Without watching the interview, my idea of this student and their perception of their school would have been a completely different idea and may have even changed my group’s paper topic. Luckily, now I know the importance of reading interviews with a grain of salt or going straight to the video/audio version if possible. 

Learning Language in Education: Communication or Domination? 

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When I watched the videos of student interviews in Ghana, I was shocked by students’ English fluency. In Professor Howard’s research about elite schools on different continents, English is the only language taught by most elite schools. Besides, our readings about the schooling systems in different countries also show that English is the dominant second language taught in some non-English speaking countries. I would like to discuss the two roles of English and language education in general: communication and domination.

Because English has become the leading lingua franca globally, one of its important roles is to facilitate communication between groups of different backgrounds. When considering the four main goals of education, I found that English education in a non-English speaking country would fulfill all the goals: political, economic, social, and cultural. Politically, a country with more people proficient in English will gain more chances of engaging in the global discussion of political issues because English dominates the international discourse. As different regions of the world are increasingly connected by global trade, English proficiency helps the communication of business ideas and supports the efficiency of global trade. With the increasing migration of people across the world and the development of information and communication technology, people can easily meet people of various backgrounds and encounter different cultures online. English helps in socializing with different individuals and learning/sharing cultures globally. In a word, English is essential for the survival and engagement of countries in globalization, especially for non-English speaking countries.

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Lots of questions arose when I thought about English as the leading language for communication. Why English? Why not Spanish or Mandarin? Will people in English-speaking countries use the second languages they learned in school? Or will they forget because English is the dominant language and most comfortable for them? Why not create a new language (e.g., Esperanto) that does not represent a specific ideology or power for the world? In my opinion, English education is also a representation of domination. Historically, colonization spread the popularity of English. Politically and economically, the portion of the world that has the most power and control speaks English. For the rest of the world, people are experiencing social and cultural westernization, not globalization. While some people thrive to connect to the world using English, other native speakers are lazy or even unaware of exploring the world outside their English bubble. My cousin studied in an elite international primary school in Beijing. While learning and speaking entirely in English in school, he must use Chinese in daily life. However, merely receiving an English education made him lose touch with Chinese society and culture. He easily became an American after immigration without any culture shock, and his transition to US school life was smooth. It strongly convinced me that English is more than just communication but implicit domination of dominated ideology and power. 

Language domination also happens in more local contexts, even outside of English education. In my community service for the left-behind children of the Dong ethnic group in a Chinese village, we assisted their Mandarin literacy (and also English) so that they could survive in the fierce education system and end their poverty and loneliness through successful academic performance. However, fewer children can speak the Dong language now, and Dong tradition might only appear in museum exhibitions one day. Combining with my own experience of learning English mandatorily as a second language, I know deeply about how powerful the education of the dominant language can penetrate, change, and even reshape a local world.

While learning languages is essential for communication, language education can also be a form of domination that prevents real communication from happening across a broader range. The education of the dominant language, especially English, will be an interesting angle to study globalization vs westernization, global citizenship education vs “western” elite schooling, and power in general.

The Danger of Community Service Versus Civic Engagement: Where Should the Line Be Drawn?

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Although in many ways community service is extremely beneficial, unspoken and problematic issues arise with who’s doing it and for what purpose. There is no arguing that on the surface, the surrounding impression of community service is nothing but beneficial and prosperous, however, with a slightly different lens and deeper analysis, it becomes apparent that there is a dangerous line between an experience for pleasure versus an experience for one’s personal gain. What is one’s true intention behind community service, specifically someone of the elite status?

The difficulty of assessing community service lies in the multitude of reasons and motivations behind doing it. This is primarily because the word service implies offering help to someone or something which automatically creates a power dynamic. One of the many dangers with community service is offering help out of pity or charity work, which evidently leads to a power hierarchy. As I previously mentioned, on the surface, there may not seem to be anything wrong with simply offering help, however the concern is rather with the idea that community service highlights the potential personal gain or growth rather than focussing on the intended impact on the beneficiaries. In many ways, this idea is closely tied to power dynamics and charity work. Charity work, I believe to be the more extreme version of community service, is most often tied to elite individuals or institutions attempting to use money and resources in the form of charity in their local communities. That is not to say that charity itself is wrong, however the way in which elites use their visible power over another person or institution evidently leads to and reinforces a hierarchy. This is not to say that all community service is rooted in beneficial gain or automatically perpetuates power dynamics, but rather those possible outcomes have to be discussed when one chooses to do community service.

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While listening and reading interviews from a few students from Sankofa International College (pseudonym, as are all names of people associated with the school) in Ghana, one student’s perspective on community service stood out to me. His name is Thierry and his childhood is extremely intricate. Long story short, due to an incident in his family, he went from high middle or upper class to low middle class. it was therefore interesting to hear about his view and perspective on community service, due to the student experiencing multiple social classes. In the interview he is asked “The community service helped you recognize social class?” and Thierry’s response was fascinating. He said, “Eventually, I felt like a boss. They envy us like I wish I were like them. This is when you start realizing that social class exists and when you see somebody… It’s hard to understand when you’re in that situation and when you look at the differences these things exist.” Although it’s very important to recognize the difference in culture and environment, I thought his response was interesting coming from someone who would classify them as upper class at one point and middle class at the time of answering. This is not necessarily Thierry’s fault, however it can be traced back to the school who promotes this idea of what community service means and achieves.

I feel I must include that I recognize that I am writing this from a perspective of privilege and someone who has grown up surrounded by opportunities and resources that are not accessible to everyone. The reason I feel connected to this concept is because I was fortunate to have the opportunity to  travel to Costa Rica in 7th grade and then India in 11th. Those experiences have had a lasting impression on me as they introduced me to the conversation of the somewhat blurry line between the dangers and benefits of community service  The reason I say this and include this in the blog is because before traveling to these countries, my peers and I had to take a week-long class to learn the difference between a cultural immersion and community service. Although we participated in direct acts of service, such as building schools and playgrounds, I was cognitive of the risk of perpetuating hierarchies and savior complexes.  It is undeniable that we went to these places to help, however we did so in a way that tried to be aware of the spaces we were entering into; we were there to learn and to be in a relationship with the community that was founded in trust and reciprocity. With that being said, I recognize the implications, as a privileged person, of going into a ‘developing’ country with the intention to help without working to create a relationship with the community itself.  

I am not saying that any and all community service sustains power dynamics, rather that community service has to be done with intent and awareness to actively destabilize yourself from perpetuating savior complex and power dynamics. It has to be done by first creating and later sustaining a trusting and collaborative relationship with the actual community itself.  My angle of this blog is more centered around inspiring students who come from privileged backgrounds to really think about their motives and/or intentions for community service.

Snow Plow Parents: Is Parent Involvement always a Good Thing?

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This is an image depicting the metaphor of a snowplow parent – a plow clearing the snow (aka obstacles, college worries, and life skills) which leaves a clear path behind
What is snowplow parenting? It is when parents “plow” every obstacle out of the way to make the path for their child as easy and effortless as possible. Image Source: https://tinyurl.com/256zzdws

It is well known that students’ academic achievement levels increase with increasing levels of parent involvement (e.g., Lara and Saracostti, 2019). Yet, is there a point where parent involvement can become harmful instead of helpful? This is a question I began to ask myself as I read through the interviews of students who attend the Croft School – an extremely elite, private school located in Chile. Throughout the interviews, I noticed a prevalent theme of parents dominating school policies and practices in negative ways. In elite settings, such as one like the Croft School, parents hold an incredible amount of power – so much so that their dominance influences teacher behavior and dictates if/when the school gets involved in certain student disciplinary actions. For example, in one interview, Alejandro (a student at the Croft School) described the overall lack of empathy and kindness that teachers have for students. Alejandro reveals that “I think it’s the pressure from the school. I think that most of the time the teachers work out of fear of being punished or to come into a lawsuit. Because a couple of years ago there was a couple of lawsuits.” Teachers live in fear of the extreme power that their students’ parents have and it deeply affects their interactions and behaviors with the students. 

Furthermore, in a later interview, Alejandro elaborates that the main way the school intervenes in disciplinary cases is “mostly if parents get involved… then [the school] will get involved.” It does not matter if the incident happens on school property or not – if the parents get involved, then the school jumps into action. The interviewer follows up Alejandro’s statement by asking “ So parents you think are really important in terms of getting what they want for their kids?” to which Alejandro responds with “Yes, they’re too powerful.” The fact that students are aware of the extreme control that parents have in the school highlights just how severe the power balance is within the education system. 

Instances like these are not isolated to the Croft School. Over-involvement and helicopter parenting is a pervasive issue throughout elite schools around the world. Researchers have begun to study the negative consequences of overparenting.  For example, 16 to 28 year-old students who reported having highly-protective parents were more likely to have low levels of self-efficacy – the trust that people have in their own abilities and skills – and poor relationships with their peers (van Ingen et al., 2015). Additionally, young people who reported having over-involved parents experienced higher levels of depression and stress, less satisfaction with life, as well as less ability to regulate their emotions. They also reported a higher sense of entitlement, and increased drug use than young people with less involved parents (LeMoyne & Buchanan, 2011). 

While parent involvement is typically seen as a positive reinforcement for students, it is important to take a step back and realize that over-parenting is a serious factor affecting more than just student achievement. The actions and behaviors of elite, overbearing parents have the power to influence not just their individual child but the entire school system including teachers, administrators, and overall school policy.

Sources

 Lara, L. & Saracostti, M. (2019). Effect of Parental Involvement on Children’s Academic Achievement in Chile. Frontiers in Psychology. doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01464 

Van Ingen, D., Freiheit, S., Steinfeldt, J. & Moore, L. (2015). Helicopter Parenting: The Effect of an Overbearing Caregiving Style on Peer Attachment and Self-Efficacy. Journal of College Counseling, 18. doi: 10.1002/j.2161-1882.2015.00065.x 

LeMoyne, T. & Buchanan, T. (2011). Does “hovering” matter? Helicopter parenting and its effect on well-being. Sociological Spectrum, 31(4), 399-418, doi: 10.1080/02732173.2011.574038


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