Abstract
The chapter examines the practices of transnational parental school choice. Analysing an online discussion between global middle-class parents moving to Berlin, we make sense of a debate which highlights different understandings of what constitutes a good international school that centres around questions of becoming “locals” in a new city or seeking to stay globally mobile. We broaden Appadurai’s concept of scapes to grasp the ways in which mobile and local conditions and practices intertwine, creating a specific eduscape. Compared to the views of local parents in Berlin, we find that school choice and the notion of internationality are highly connected to a practice of social distinction among both globally mobile parents and Berlin locals.
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Breidenstein, G., Forsey, M., La Gro, F., Krüger, J.O., Roch, A. (2018). Choosing International: A Case Study of Globally Mobile Parents. In: Maxwell, C., Deppe, U., Krüger, HH., Helsper, W. (eds) Elite Education and Internationalisation. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-59966-3_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-59966-3_10
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