Missed opportunities for intercultural learning: The marginalisation of students’ intercultural experiences in international schools in China under neoliberalism

Abstract

This study focuses on opportunities for intercultural learning in Type C international schools, an emerging form of international schooling that has become predominant in China and primarily serves local Chinese students. Based on classroom observations and individual semi-structured interviews with students and one teacher, it examines the nature of students' intercultural experiences and analyses the significance of how students interpret and respond to these experiences. The findings show that despite perceptions of cultural homogeneity in this classroom setting, students still have valuable intercultural experiences. These experiences centre on encounters with cultural otherness, particularly students' attempts to understand and interpret unfamiliar cultural practices and their representations of cultural others. Even when arising from one-off situational encounters or exposure to media representations of otherness, such experiences can inform students' intercultural learning. This suggests that even limited encounters can provide a resource for reflection that challenges learners' assumptions and promotes reinterpretation of the encounter. However, the findings also show that the potential for prior experience to become a resource for intercultural learning is largely dependent on how learners are encouraged to engage with their own and other's experiences within the classroom environment. In this study, reflection on intercultural experience formed part of classroom learning only sporadically, with teachers' attempts to share their experiences seen as tangential to formal learning. This paper argues that this marginalization of intercultural learning reflects the neoliberal, outcomes-driven contexts in which these schools operate, undergirded by accreditation and quality assurance systems.