Colonial, postcolonial and global formations of elite schools

This Symposium will examine a range of issues relating to the colonial and post-colonial formations of elite schools – how their histories continue to shape many aspects of their work, and the ways in which they interpret and negotiate the pressures and opportunities associated with globalization. The discussion will be based on the work of a major international project funded by the Australian Research Council. The project, 'Elite schools in globalizing circumstances', involves a multi-sited global ethnographic study of high status schools in Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, India, Barbados, South Africa, England, Argentina and Cyprus, each created in the nineteenth century in the image of British public schools. At this symposium, three leading researchers working on the project, will discuss how new race, class and gender formations are emerging at these schools, shaped by global forces, connections and imaginations.

Speakers and Presentations

Dr Johannah Fahey, Monash University
Histories make Geographies, Geographies make Class: British colonialism and class making in an elite school in India

Professor Fazal Rizvi, Graduate School of Education, Melbourne University
Indian Aristocracy and the Colonial Formation of Elite Schools in India

Professor Cameron McCarthy, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Scholars on Their Way to Entrepreneurs: Barbadian Elite School Youth as Postcolonial Argonauts

For more information on the presentations, please view http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/schools/education/events/2013/12/colonial-postcolonial-and-global-formations-of-elite-schools.aspx