Paper short abstract:

Schools do not exist in a vacuum of space. They are embedded, embody and are constructed against the places that they operate within. This paper considers international schools as institutions that leverage proximity to the national and local, raising their esteem, global persona, and marketability.

Paper long abstract:

Place matters. Schools do not exist in a vacuum of space, they are embedded, embody and are constructed against the places that they operate within. Place in fact shapes nearly everything about international schools, because without a conception of what is and is not ‘global’, there would be no point of reference from which they could differentiate themselves as providers of a niche educational experience and product. The global, national and local all play a part in the mutually constitutive formation of the 'international' and of the international school itself.

This paper examines two international schools in the UK, which relied on student and parent imaginations and desires about place and the relevance of global competencies and cosmopolitan capital for their future careers. This paper explores the ways in which students encounter the global in the everyday, as well as the significance of the materiality of the national in cultivating the creation of transformative environments and atmospheres for students. Through a consideration of the impact of the national and local within schools spaces, this paper offers a new perspective on international schools as institutions that can leverage proximity to the national and local to raise the esteem and global persona of the institution itself. Embedded within the British context, I argue that the study of UK-based international schools offers unique insight into the ways that educational institutions create atmospheres of globality and distinction, which are in turn, marketed to students.