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Our analysis of young people who have stayed in rural communities contributes to a ‘relational turn' in youth studies that rejects substantialist approaches to make visible the range of relationships beyond simply educational qualifications and employment that inform youth life projects. This relational turn recognises that ‘youth' is a product of classificatory struggles that become routinised into taken for granted concepts. Our analysis challenges the tendency to see geographical mobility as a normative component of contemporary youth transitions; and rejects the assumption that geographical immobility for rural youth is necessarily associated with disadvantage. Drawing on Yuval Davis' concept of belonging we use longitudinal survey and interview data from rural Australians that left school in 2006 and who stayed in rural locations. Drawing on this data we employ a biographical approach that focuses on their everyday practices and narratives of life projects to explore the dynamics of belonging to place and community over time. Our qualitative analysis of youth narratives supports a relational analysis of belonging to reveal significant similarities between the life projects of rural ‘stayers’ and those who moved to urban areas emphasising belonging through relationships to place, work, family and friends and the personal recognition these elements bring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Asian migrant students are typically considered as educational paragons in the West. They have been shown to surpass other students in standard indicators of educational success. However, viewing this success with a purely ethnic framework is inadequate and essentialising. It conflates the experiences of various groups into a homogenised 'Asian' category and ignores the crucial role played by other properties and processes, such as social class and engagement with hierarchical education systems. This paper incorporates these multiple dimensions to provide a fuller account of 'Asian' success. Using large scale longitudinal survey data from Australia, we demonstrate the internal differences in the educational outcomes of Asian groups, and outline the stratifying role played by parental cultural capital. Most importantly, we show how unequal engagement with schools and the curriculum produces unequal outcomes. This intersectional approach enables a more theoretically integrated understanding of the factors that produce educational inequality in diverse societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The advent of global citizenship agendas marks a transformation in citizenship education policy and practice internationally. However, research has revealed a highly diverse collection of visions and models for global citizenship. This article seeks to make two main contributions to the study of global citizenship in education. Empirically, it aims to identify the kind of global citizenship proposed in state-led Australian citizenship education policy for schools, using a national policy corpus spanning the last three decades. Theoretically, it intends to highlight the relevance of the sociology of citizenship, cosmopolitanism, and internationalism to refine our understanding of visions global citizenship in schooling. Comparing and contrasting 'global' and 'international' references in the corpus, the analysis reveals that different supra-national visions are associated with global and international lexica. We conclude by highlighting the implications of our analytical model and findings for future research on global citizenship education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The internationalisation of educational trajectories has emerged as a new form of cultural capital in education systems. Research suggests that the 'international capital' offered by language enrichment programs has become appropriated primarily by middle- and upper-class families investing in new forms of educational distinction. However, little is known about the appeal of international capital to different class fractions. In this paper, I draw on Bourdieu's theory of class and administrative data on French students and schools to examine the role of international certification in class practices of school choice. The analysis reveals that specific fractions of the upper-middle and upper classes are over-represented in schools offering international certificates. I use the findings to discuss the role of family resources and education system structures in the making of educational strategies. I conclude by highlighting the importance of empirically grounded analyses of the sociological significance and limits of international capital in education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International education options have expanded in most school systems around the world with promises of curricular innovation. However, there has been limited attention given to the consequences of this shift for social inequalities embedded in pre-existing institutional hierarchies. The International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma, a two-year high school curriculum, has been prominent among recent private curricula, centred on notions of international mindedness and global preparedness. This article seeks to examine the consequences of the presence of the IB Diploma in a school system that is socioeconomically and academically stratified and shaped by strategies of academic distinction focused on local hierarchies. Using quantitative data on IB Diploma students and schools in Australia, it analyses the interaction of the IB Diploma with social inequalities in a system that combines a high level of between-school stratification and a comprehensive (unified) curriculum. We show how the IB Diploma has been successfully used by socially dominant and academically powerful families to consolidate their academic capital and secure educational advantage, thus contributing to the reproduction of social inequality in domestic circuits of schooling. Against its perceived innovative status, the IB Diploma has paradoxically contributed to fostering traditional forms of schooling – including within-school tracking – and a narrowing of the curriculum – including through its strong focus on examinations. It is argued that the social impact of emerging international curriculum options can only be adequately understood if they are simultaneously contextualised within historically constituted local school and curriculum hierarchies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global middle class (GMC) is a theoretical construct that seeks to globalise a set of attributes identified in studies of school choice in the global north, and to a lesser extent in developing nations in Asia. As theorised by Ball a mobile middle class with cosmopolitan sensibilities drives international education options in global cities. This proposition is challenged through analysis of the histories of curriculum and class relations in two national settings (Australia and Brazil) and examination of contemporary class profiles (i.e. economic and cultural properties) in expanding forms of international education in these countries. The paper argues that the forms of cosmopolitanism associated with the educational practices of the GMC must be examined within broader historical relationships of cultural domination. We conclude by arguing that broadening the historical horizon is an important exercise to challenge the claim of the GMC to be a novel category involving exceptional forms of cultural contact generated by the dynamics of the 'global city'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the synopsis of the thesis about the sociology of education including the purposes of the thesis, research design and conclusions.