1st Edition

Policies and Pedagogies of Canadian Offshore Schools Geopolitical Dynamics, Internationalization, and New Modalities of Coloniality

Edited By Fei Wang, André Elias Mazawi Copyright 2025
    214 Pages 1 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    This book critically examines the international, geopolitical, policy, institutional, and curricular challenges facing Canadian offshore school programs. Bringing together scholars and practitioners concerned with addressing the pedagogical, organizational, curriculum, and policy aspects of this transnational mode of schooling, it represents a ground- breaking exploration of K- 12 offshore schools within the wider contexts of global geopolitics and forms of soft power.

    The book examines the vulnerability that arises from having to manoeuvre political, social, geopolitical, and economic policy simultaneously in both the host and home- licencing countries. It delves into conflicts within the context of neoliberal economic agendas, neocolonial and geopolitical interests, and social class reproduction within host countries. The book is the first scholarly space that questions how international educational initiatives are affected by emerging global threats, such as the recent Covid pandemic. Additionally, it unpacks the question of citizenship and its intersections with social class, immigration, and sociocultural dynamics. It explores how these intersections forge new paths not only to mobility but also to new configurations of power and new spaces of politics and identity. With a range of reflexive, empirical, and theoretical contributions that cover every aspect of offshore schools, the book reassesses the trope of globalization dominated by Eurocentric perspectives. It decompartmentalizes diverse perspectives and insights on the internationalisation of schooling opportunities, and provides an overview of the challenges and possibilities open to offshore schools in different cultural contexts, making it the first comprehensive body of research on this type of schooling.

    This book will be of great value to researchers, faculty, scholars, and postgraduate students working across international and comparative education. It will be particularly useful to those interested in the intersections betweeneducation and geopolitically situated forms of soft power.

    Preface Taylor Webb

    Chapter 1: Editorial Introduction: Framing Canadian Offshore School Programs Fei Wang & André Elias Mazawi

    Part I: Borders, Partnerships, and Bordering Capabilities

    Chapter 2: Assemblages of Territory, Political Authority, and Rights: The “Bordering Capabilities” of BC Certified Offshore School Programs André Elias Mazawi
    Chapter 3: Affiliated Schools and Public– Private Partnerships in Manitoban Education:
    A Focus on Manitoba’s Offshore School in Egypt Abdelhady Elnagar
    Chapter 4: What counts as “educated citizens”: Discussing how whiteness is represented by British Columbia offshore schools in non-Western contexts Zhenyang Xu

    Part II: Navigating Entangled Workplaces

    Chapter 5: Working in Offshore Schools - The Good, The Bad, and The Odd – Stories from Inspectors, Principals and Teachers Fei Wang
    Chapter 6: “Are you a moral imperialist for doing what you do there?”: Thoughts on moral rightness from principals of Canadian-accredited schools in China Lee Smith

    Part III: Pedagogical Encounters and Their Discontents

    Chapter 7: The post-pandemic repositioning of a Canadian bilingual offshore school in the Paris region: the value-added of purpose, presence, and place Hélène H. Leone
    Chapter 8: Student Perspectives of Pedagogies, Teachers, and Language Policies in Three British
    Columba Offshore Schools in China Ian Alexander
    Chapter 9: Lingering between the Local and the Global: Decolonized Cosmopolitanism Informed Pedagogy in Offshore Schools Wanying Wang

    Chapter 10: Afterword Fei Wang

    Biography

    Fei Wang is Associate Professor in Educational Leadership and Administration in the Department of Educational Studies at the University of British Columbia, Canada.

    André Elias Mazawi is Professor, Sociologist of Education, at the Department of Educational Studies at the University of British Columbia, Canada.