Alternative education spaces and pathways: Insights from an international Christian school in China

• Main Authors: DE SILVA, Menusha, WOODS, Orlando, KONG, Lily
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2020
• Subjects: alternative education spaces; China; cultural capital; international schools; faith-based schools; higher education; Asian Studies; International and Comparative Education
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/3199; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/soss_research/article/4456/viewcontent/AREA_RP_Jun_2019_sv.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

The nascent scholarship on geographies of alternative education focuses on alternative education spaces, most located in the UK, that resist and/or negotiate neoliberal restructuring of education, some of which cater to socially marginalised groups. In contrast, through an ethnographic focus on an underground Christian international school in China, we examine an alternative education space that responds to parents’ aspirations for their children to be inculcated with global cultural capital, Chinese values and Christian beliefs. These aspirations are not fulfilled in mainstream state schools or international schools in China, but are demanded by parents looking for a “superior” set of skills for their children to navigate the increasingly neoliberal, and global, higher education and employment landscapes. The discussion reveals the incongruities in the school’s claim to simultaneously instil global, local and spiritual forms of cultural capital, which leads to two visions of the pathway to higher education. The paper expands the geographies of alternative education in three ways. First, it shows how international and faith-based schools can provide alternative schooling. Second, it shows how the departure of alternative education spaces from their mainstream counterparts can reveal the inadequacies of the latter. Third, it draws attention to how the cultural capital inculcated through alternative education can lead to alternative international higher education pathways within and beyond China.