IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/urbstu/v59y2022i1p242-258.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The (de)territorialised appeal of international schools in China: Forging brands, boundaries and inter-belonging in segregated urban space

Author

Listed:
  • Lily Kong

    (Singapore Management University, Singapore)

  • Orlando Woods

    (Singapore Management University, Singapore)

  • Hong Zhu

    (Guangzhou University, China)

Abstract

This paper considers how the (de)territorialised appeal of international schools in China can reflect, enforce and expand pre-existing patterns of urban segregation. Whilst exploration of the effects of educational marketplaces on urban environments has become a focus of scholarly research, the recent expansion in the supply of, and demand for, international education has caused these effects to become more nuanced. As (de)territorialised entities, international schools can cause multiple forms of spatial and psycho-social distinction and (dis)association to become intertwined, the effects of which start from the school and radiate out from there. International schools can therefore cause segregation to become a structurally entrenched phenomenon. These ideas are illustrated through an empirical examination of three international schools located in the eastern Chinese city of Suzhou. We explore the ways in which these schools are branded spaces that reproduce socio-spatial boundaries and thus foster a (de)territorialised sense of inter-belonging amongst their students.

Suggested Citation

  • Lily Kong & Orlando Woods & Hong Zhu, 2022. "The (de)territorialised appeal of international schools in China: Forging brands, boundaries and inter-belonging in segregated urban space," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 59(1), pages 242-258, January.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:59:y:2022:i:1:p:242-258
    DOI: 10.1177/0042098020954143
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0042098020954143
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0042098020954143?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jie Shen & Yang Xiao, 2020. "Emerging divided cities in China: Socioeconomic segregation in Shanghai, 2000–2010," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 57(6), pages 1338-1356, May.
    2. Michael Storper & Allen J Scott, 2016. "Current debates in urban theory: A critical assessment," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 53(6), pages 1114-1136, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gwilym Owen & Yu Chen & Timothy Birabi & Gwilym Pryce & Hui Song & Bifeng Wang, 2023. "Residential segregation of migrants: Disentangling the intersectional and multiscale segregation of migrants in Shijiazhuang, China," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 60(1), pages 166-182, January.
    2. Kevin Ward & Timothy Bunnell, 2021. "Reflections on five years of the Summer Institute in Urban Studies," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 58(4), pages 863-878, March.
    3. Yael Allweil, 2018. "The tent: The uncanny architecture of agonism for Israel–Palestine, 1910–2011," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 55(2), pages 316-331, February.
    4. Francesca Froy, 2023. "Learning from architectural theory about how cities work as complex and evolving spatial systems," Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 16(3), pages 495-510.
    5. Chihsin Chiu, 2020. "Theorizing Public Participation and Local Governance in Urban Resilience: Reflections on the “Provincializing Urban Political Ecology” Thesis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(24), pages 1-12, December.
    6. Huan Zhang & Adam Grydehøj, 2021. "Locating the interstitial island: Integration of Zhoushan Archipelago into the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 58(10), pages 2157-2173, August.
    7. Lauren Rickards & Brendan Gleeson & Mark Boyle & Cian O’Callaghan, 2016. "Urban studies after the age of the city," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 53(8), pages 1523-1541, June.
    8. Khandakar Farid Uddin & Awais Piracha, 2023. "Neoliberalism, Power, and Right to the City and the Urban Divide in Sydney, Australia," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 12(2), pages 1-18, February.
    9. Lily Kong & Junxi Qian, 2019. "Knowledge circulation in urban geography/urban studies, 1990–2010: Testing the discourse of Anglo-American hegemony through publication and citation patterns," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 56(1), pages 44-80, January.
    10. Gervásio F. dos Santos & Alejandra Vives Vergara & Mauricio Fuentes-Alburquenque & José Firmino de Sousa Filho & Aureliano Sancho Paiva & Andres Felipe Useche & Goro Yamada & Tania Alfaro & Amélia A. , 2023. "Socioeconomic Urban Environment in Latin America: Towards a Typology of Cities," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(8), pages 1-16, April.
    11. Kristian Saguin, 2017. "Producing an urban hazardscape beyond the city," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 49(9), pages 1968-1985, September.
    12. Özgür Sayın & Michael Hoyler & John Harrison, 2022. "Doing comparative urbanism differently: Conjunctural cities and the stress-testing of urban theory," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 59(2), pages 263-280, February.
    13. Julie Ren, 2020. "Book review: Making Urban Theory: Learning and Unlearning Through Southern Cities," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 57(14), pages 3002-3005, November.
    14. Zhang, Yanji & Wang, Jiejing & Kan, Changcheng, 2022. "Temporal variation in activity-space-based segregation: A case study of Beijing using location-based service data," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    15. Kim Dovey & Fujie Rao & Elek Pafka, 2018. "Agglomeration and assemblage: Deterritorialising urban theory," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 55(2), pages 263-273, February.
    16. Yang, Junping & Zhang, Mengjie & Ballester-Miquel, José Carlos & Ribeiro-Navarrete, Samuel, 2022. "Exploring what drives entrepreneurs: Intergenerational differences between entrepreneurs born in the 1980s and 1990s," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 183(C).
    17. Michael Hoyler & John Harrison, 2017. "Global cities research and urban theory making," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 49(12), pages 2853-2858, December.
    18. Shen, Yue & Luo, Xueyao, 2023. "Linking spatial and temporal contexts to multi-contextual segregation by hukou status in urban China," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    19. H.G. Gebrihet & P. Pillay, 2020. "Determinants of Urban Land Lease Market in an Emerging Economy: Empirical Evidence from Ethiopia," International Journal of Economics & Business Administration (IJEBA), International Journal of Economics & Business Administration (IJEBA), vol. 0(4), pages 450-470.
    20. Julie Ren, 2022. "A more global urban studies, besides empirical variation," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 59(8), pages 1741-1748, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:59:y:2022:i:1:p:242-258. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.gla.ac.uk/departments/urbanstudiesjournal .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.