Claire Maxwell

• Professor at University of Copenhagen

Cosmopolitanism and nationalism are often presented in binary terms, as standing in opposition to each other, especially with regards to education. In this paper, we establish a framework for studying education policy today through the lens of a concept we have developed: ‘cosmopolitan nationalism’. Many education systems around the world are grapp...

The potentiality of converting capitals in new national fields following migration has been the focus of a number of studies. Another, much smaller, literature examines experiences of return migration. In this paper, we follow 15 Israeli families (where both mothers and children have been interviewed) who have been globally mobile for professional...

Education policy has witnessed a series of trends in recent decades at the global level, including: efforts to expand education for all; the rise of lowcost options, often facilitated by technological innovation; and the growing influence of private corporations, NGOs, and the ‘effective philanthropy’ movement. But an overriding shift that ties man...

State-run schooling systems around the globe are witnessing the growing influence of external actors on articulations, provisions, policies, and outcomes of education. For instance, academies and charter schools, parental choice, contracting out, public-private partnerships, for-profit providers, benefit corporations, heterarchical governance, vent...

The main role of an elite school is to produce future leaders and this paper examines how four elite schools in different parts of the Global South are engaging in this process. Despite the critiques of global citizenship education (GCE) being a vestige of the colonial project, we analyse closely how it is being actively and productively appropriat...

We take a necessary de-imperialist approach to studying how ‘Eastern’ and ‘Western’ values are negotiated in an elite school in Taiwan. By drawing on the ‘Asia as method’ framework, we examine how cultural tensions are identified and moved towards a negotiated resolution between parents and school staff. As parents and school work to develop an edu...

In this paper we focus on two types of middle-class families: those who avoid air travel for environmental reasons and those who choose to live nomadic lives, travelling with their children around the world and staying weeks or months in certain locations, mainly in Asia, South America, and Africa. We analyse data gathered from interviews with pare...

In this paper the authors study 19 Global Middle Class (GMC) families currently residing in four global cities: Hong Kong; London; Buenos Aires; and Tel Aviv. Through qualitative in-depth interviews, they sought to gather insights about GMC parenting strategies, specifically drawing attention to the decision-making processes of school choice. To fa...

Drawing on a multi-sited global ethnography of elite schools, this article explores how these institutions work to produce subjects that will thrive in a globalized world. We examine how despite a similar commitment to global citizenship education and a cosmopolitan orientation across all schools, the intersections between the transnational and nat...

This study adds to the emerging body of literature on parental practices and trajectories of globally mobile middle-class families, by focusing on families belonging to diverse religious Jewish communities. Through an interview-based, in-depth analysis of three internationally mobile families representing various Jewish religious factions, we illus...

This article examines whether and how globally mobile middle-class professional families engage in practices of nationalism through forging connections with a ‘home nation’ despite continuous relocations for work. Drawing on the concept of boundary objects which are used to facilitate frequent boundary crossings, we identify the promotion of langua...

Our paper analyses data from four Heads of elite fee-charging girls’ schools in Scotland, focusing on how two social landscape changes - changing pupil demographics and pressures on schools’ charitable status – may have reshaped the schools’ institutional habitus. Following Bourdieu, we examine this question through the concept of habitus clivé. Sh...

In this essay we develop the concept of 'cosmopolitan nationalism', offering a working definition and suggesting ways sociologists of education might draw on it in their future work. We show how it is a useful analytical lens through which to examine contemporary policies and practices that navigate global processes (ranking systems, mobility of pe...

In this article, we focus on the transformations imposed on schools by individual parents, arguing that schools as modern organisations change not only through top-down pressures orchestrated by an array of international organisations, for-profit companies and media as shown in previous research, but also through the agency of mobile parents, who s...

Drawing on 17 qualitative interviews with women aged 18–22, this paper explores how sexting practices are related to views on and uses of pornography. While pornography was found to be an important reference point for participants in their sexting, sexted images were actively tailored to differentiate themselves from porn in three ways. First, priv...

The authors explore global citizenship education at a boarding school in Jordan that aims to prepare democratically minded leaders for the Middle East.

In this brief commentary, I reflect on the main themes that emerge across the papers published in this special issue. Despite the focus on Israel, I argue that the key findings have relevance to other contexts. This commentary seeks specifically to identify spaces for optimism in a context often categorised as highly stratified and engaged in an in...

Travel has become ubiquitous for most social groups as holidaying abroad has become ever cheaper and ecumene. This paper considers how travel can be understood as part of family practices around children’s educations and futures. Drawing on Kaufmann’s (2011) concept of motility, we examine how spatial mobility might become a form of cultural capita...

This chapter presents an innovative, cross-disciplinary methodological approach to systematically reviewing and comparing large bodies of literature using big data, Natural Language Processing, network analysis, and supplementary qualitative analysis. The approach is demonstrated through an analysis of the literature surrounding four common concept...

In 2016, the Israeli Ministry of Education (MoE) issued a policy document recommending six new doctrines for pedagogical development at schools. Amid those is ‘Glocalism’, aimed at addressing the global/local mix within the schooling system. Given the lack of a declared internationalization policy in Israel and its highly nationalistic curricula, t...

The chapter explores how elite education can facilitate the development and realization of aspirations. Through drawing on Bourdieu's concept of habitus (e.g. Bourdieu 1977, 1996), we examine how an elite girls' school institutional habitus works spatio-temporally to extend the family habitus and, in doing so, supports the emergence of girls' agent...

In this study we explore how different forms of family mobility shape parental education strategies of three middle class groups (moored Israeli professionals, immigrants from Israel to the UK and global middle class Israeli families). By focusing on families from the same nationality, we show how different practices of mobility differentiate betwe...

This special issue (SI) highlights how the transnational flow of people in a ‘global age’ shapes the needs and aspirations of learners, how citizenship education can engage with this, while taking account of differences across groups and contexts. In this editorial introduction, we introduce a thematic analysis of GCE scholarship to date and consid...

We examined the parental strategies of global middle class (GMC) parents currently living in Israel, and compared these to their local middle class (LMC) peers. Both groups of parents were focused on securing advantages for their children through education choices and practices of cultivation. The central difference between these two groups of midd...

Global citizenship education (GCE) has recently been promoted by national education systems and supranational organisations as a means for facilitating social cohesion and peace education. We examined the perceptions of GCE held by teachers from the three main education sectors in Israel: secular-Jewish, religious-Jewish, and Palestinian Arab, and...

In this paper we reflect on the challenges of engaging in social justice work within elite schools. Drawing on experiences collaborating with an elite school in a justice-oriented research project, we consider the theoretical resources that informed this work. We demonstrate how Freire’s work has been critical in forming the kind of relations that...

This paper makes an empirical contribution to the study of the Global Middle Classes (GMC), and sheds light on the complex relationships that are constructed and sustained by these families with their ‘home nation’ through their educational strategies. Drawing on an inductive analysis of twenty in-depth interviews with Israeli migrant mothers in th...

In the concluding chapter of this volume, Claire Maxwell seeks to offer some new understandings about how internationalisation practices within education are altering our conceptions of what is elite. Drawing on the various contributions in the book, Claire Maxwell highlights four critical juxtapositions in the interpretation and implementation of...

Processes of internationalisation are increasingly recognised as central to the study of education. Most of the research emphasises the importance of global education policy initiatives and forms of accountability, the exponential growth of edu-businesses, the increasing transnational movement of capital and people, and how this has led to increase...

This book offers both a theoretical and empirical examination of elite education, at all stages from the early years to university level. The book explores the various manifestations of internationalisation of education; the implications of these for national education systems; the formation and re-articulation of elite forms of education locally a...

This chapter examines the intersections between a growing ‘global middle class’, their emplacement within national education systems and subsequent changes within provision of education due to the emergence of this new prominent social group. We begin with an analysis of the discourses that call forth notions of global citizenship and global citize...

Editorial and presentation of the different papers selected for this special issue. The aim is to explore how elite groups and elite identities are formed and how educational and training processes shape the creation of elites. But also why these might vary in space and in time, across different contexts. Five specific aspects are considerate: - er...

Drawing on findings from a longitudinal study of four private schools in one geographical area in England, this paper seeks to extend understandings of how these schools differentially seek to position themselves as 'elite'. Findings highlight the continuing legacy of the Great Schools (private boarding-schools) of 18th and 19th century England in...

As part of the 50th anniversary celebration of the journal Sociology, four e-special issues have been produced to explore specific themes across the journal’s history. In this e-special, we examine how social class has been discussed during the early years of the journal, 1967–1979. Based on our selection of 10 past articles, and two more recent ar...

A growing body of research has highlighted that violence against young women and girls is a widespread problem (Burton et al., 1998; Barter et al., 2009; Maxwell and Aggleton, 2014a). Part of the reason it is so endemic and difficult to challenge is that violence in relationships is often normalised and justified by both young men and women (McCarr...

This paper re-examines the purposes of a planned and intentional parenting style – ‘concerted cultivation’ – for different middle-class groups, highlighting that social class fraction, ethnicity, and also individual family disposition, guides understandings of the purposes of enrolling children in particular enrichment activities. We examine how pa...

This paper reflects on key moments occurring during the course of a three-year study of elite girls’ education, with a focus on the power relations that emerged between researchers and elites within the context in which the study was conducted. Central to our analysis is a focus on the affective dimensions of interaction between the researcher and...

Elite Education – International Perspectives is the first book to systematically examine elite education in different parts of the world. Authors provide a historical analysis of the emergence of national elite education systems and consider how recent policy and economic developments are changing the configuration of elite trajectories and the soc...

This article examines the ways in which cosmopolitanism is imagined and planned for by 91 young women attending four private (elite) schools in one area of England. Despite many study participants coming from families where parents travelled internationally for business, few had a strong desire to reproduce such orientations in their own futures. M...

This paper re-examines the purposes of a planned and intentional parenting style - ‘concerted cultivation’ - for different middle-class groups, highlighting that social class fraction, ethnicity, and also individual family disposition, guides understandings of the purposes of enrolling children in particular enrichment activities. We examine how pa...

Employing a Weberian understanding of the centrality of a strong bureaucracy in the modern nation-state, this article examines the relationship between the state and elite education in France. Through a historical analysis and an examination of two current issues facing education – widening participation and pressures to internationalise – we illus...

Over the past 25 years, there has been growing investment in concepts of rights in the areas of HIV prevention, care and treatment, including HIV- and AIDS-related education delivered in schools. Despite this increasing commitment to the notion of rights, few efforts appear to have been made to understand the varying conceptions of rights that unde...

This paper examines factors driving the agentic practices of young women who are privately educated. The analysis informing this paper comes from a three-year study, in which 91 young women aged 15–19 years were interviewed. Four private schools in one area of middle England participated in the research, and over half of the young women were re-int...

The paper examines processes of cultural production and reproduction among members of the elite and upper-middle classes. Drawing on findings from a study of private education in England, it explores the utility of a conceptual framework to examine how practices in and across different sites may be reproductive of various forms of ‘privilege’. Thre...

Gender-related violence is a relatively commonplace experience for many young people today. The prevalence of gender-related violence has been demonstrated in multiple geographical locations, with research conducted in North America (AAUW Educational Foundation, 2001), across parts of Africa (Parkes & Heslop, 2011), Sweden (Witkowska & Menckel, 200...

Privilege, Agency and Affect – understanding the production and effects of action (edited by Claire Maxwell & Peter Aggleton) has just been published in paperback (http://www.palgrave.com/gb/book/9781137292629#aboutBook). With contributions from key scholars around the world, it seeks to explore the links between the concepts of privilege, agency...

This paper takes as its starting point the concept of concerted cultivation as coined by Annette Lareau. It examines whether a focus on concerted cultivation adequately captures the various practices observed in young women’s experiences of being privately educated in four schools in one area of England. We suggest that a variety of practices of cu...

This book emerges from our longstanding interest in understanding and finding ways to promote more equitable practices between people and through institutions. In research projects and other activities, we have examined relationships from the most intimate of levels (in sexuality, gender violence, alcohol and substance use, and in sexual health res...

This book seeks to bring into dialogue ideas and approaches from a group of academics variously engaged with some or all of the following concepts: privilege, agency and affect. In recent research examining the agentic practices of young women who are privately educated, we ourselves have been moving towards a focus on all three of these concepts:...

This article contributes to theorizations of agency through a focus on how understandings of power within young women’s sexual and intimate relationships connect with their descriptions of feeling, reacting and sensuous bodies, to suggest why and how agentic practice takes place. Drawing on the narratives of 54 young women aged 16–18 years in one s...

There are a number of gaps in current understandings of the links between young femininities, agency and social class. Building on recent work, we examine how closely young middle-class women in one fee-paying school in England take up so-called top girl discourses and explore whether and how such discursive positions are linked to agentic practice...

There are many challenges in evaluating international networks. The use of conventional tools can be difficult and often provides less than useful information. Social Network Analysis offers benefits for network evaluators by allowing for documentation and analysis of inter-relationships between individuals and organisations. This paper describes t...

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)- and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS)-related education is seen by many as central to increasing young people's awareness of, as well as decreasing their vulnerability to, HIV. There is less agreement, however, on the central goals of HIV- and AIDS-related education and the form it might best take. This p...

Agency among young women is often understood as fleeting in nature, and studies rarely offer insights into how agency could become a more sustained position. Using data from 54 young women discussing their sexual and intimate relationships, this paper suggests a new way of understanding agency beyond that found in work which stresses agentic practi...

Conceptualisations of the self in relation to others are examined among a group of young women attending a fee‐paying school in England. As part of a larger study exploring intimacy and agency among young women from relatively privileged class backgrounds, 54 young women participated in focus group discussions and interviews. Findings reveal that y...

In November 2006 the government began a project in 10 local areas in England to see if boarding school might be a possible option for children and young people who could no longer stay all the time with their parents or carers or who were facing difficulties such as not attending school and not getting on with their families. The evaluation took pl...

Policy and practice on sex and relationships education (SRE) in England often has the stated objectives of delaying sexual activity, reducing sexually transmitted infections and lowering rates of teenage conception. Underlying these objectives is the desire to support young people in making ‘informed choices’ and developing the skills that will ena...

Internationally, as well as here in the UK, the concept of ‘peer pressure’ is widely used in analysing the factors influencing young people's experiences of sex and pregnancy – illustrated, for instance, by the following strapline from a recent English government‐funded teenage pregnancy national media campaign: ‘Should I let my friends control my...

Purpose This paper aims to inform the development of policies and programmes to support children and young people's emotional wellbeing and mental health. It seeks to bring together findings both from recent systematic reviews, and from individual evaluation studies which have adopted a relatively rigorous methodology but whose findings have not to...

Over the last 25 years there has been an increase in reported behavioural and emotional problems among young people. Moreover, students in higher education (HE) are reported to have increased symptoms of mental ill health compared with age‐matched controls. Some students in further education (FE) are likely to experience similar difficulties, espec...

Although the ‘Greater Involvement of People Living with or Affected by HIV/AIDS’ (GIPA) principle was first articulated over a decade ago (UNAIDS, 199912. UNAIDS ( 1999 ). From principle to practice: Greater Involvement of People Living with or Affected by HIV/AIDS (GIPA) . Geneva : UNAIDS . Available at : http://data.unaids.org/Publications/IRC-pu...

Thirty-eight young men and women from contrasting social locations were interviewed in depth about their sexual relationships, with a focus on gender roles and attitudes, romantic relationship expectations and sexual experiences. Analysis of young people's narratives revealed that these moved relatively easily between `normative' and `alternative'...

Purpose This paper aims to contribute to growing efforts to “contextualise” young people's experiences of sexual and intimate relationships in research and sex and relationships education (SRE). The study reports on which explored factors young people identified as influencing their relationships – in the past, present and future. Design/methodolo...

Previous research has shown increased vulnerability to teenage parenthood for young people with experience of local authority care. This study explored factors contributing to early pregnancy and parenthood among young people in and leaving care; the types of support available; and the extent to which services are perceived as accessible. Semi-stru...

This paper seeks to operationalise the concept of social ‘vulnerability’ and explore its usefulness as a framework for understanding sexual relationships. Data from 30 vulnerable and less vulnerable young women in one UK city were collected through in-depth interviews and focus groups. An analysis of differences and similarities in participants’ se...

This study aimed to explore how FE colleges in England are engaging with and addressing the mental health needs of their young students (aged 16-19), both in terms of promoting positive mental health and emotional well-being and in responding to identified mental health problems.