Education In The Global City

Education in the Global City examines education in Singapore through the critical lens of ‘manufacturing’. The book brings together two disparate fields which inform each other, education and the ‘global city’; and the book’s contributors analyse and critique the manufacturing of Singapore education and Singapore’s global city formation. The collection covers vocational education, language policies, Higher Education, English education, critical thinking, sex education, creativity, and critical feminist scholarship. Collectively, the book pries open the ideology of the manufacturing education system, and points out the tension between the nation and its ideologies, and the ‘global city’ aspirations. It also asks how education contributes to, and is shaped by, the market realities of Singapore’s global city ambitions – which are at odds with the nationalistic local agenda and priorities of nation-building. In interrupting and speaking against the prevailing (and narrow) manufacturing of education for a teleological end, in spite of Singapore’s successful nation-building, this book is an important contribution to critical education scholarship.This book was originally published as a special issue of Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education.

Across the world, cities are being reshaped in myriad ways by neoliberal forms of globalization, a process of urban restructuring with significant implications for educational policy and practices. The chapters in this collection speak to two complementary but analytically distinguishable aspects of the interplay between education, globalization, cities, and neoliberalism. The first aspect relates to the macro relationships between these powerful global forces on the one hand, and cities and their schools on the other. In particular the book considers the stratifying dynamics that exacerbate already existing inequalities related to race, ethnicity, language, class, and gender—inequalities entailing differential access to the city’s various resources. The second aspect deals with the cultural politics, and logics, of these changes in the city. This recognises that globalization is not simply imposed on the city, but rather becomes insinuated into its fabric through the actions and the agency of local actors and social movements. Against this backdrop, the chapters document how the educational politics of urban contexts in the United States, India, Canada, South Africa and Brazil should be understood as sites in which neoliberal forms of globalization are localised, reproduced, and potentially contested. This book was originally published as a special issue of Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education.

Education in a Global City: Essays from London maps recent education developments in the urban education environment of London. This book is designed and written to inform those who live and work in London but the contents will resonate with those who are operating in similar contexts in cities throughout the world. This innovative book written by leading academics and practitioners and edited by two education policy experts explores a multitude of themes and issues directly affected by the urban environment such as the quality of schools, staffing, governance, the development and reproduction of a skilled and qualified labour force and funding. Many big global cities share the same characteristics of complexity and diversity, extremes in wealth and poverty and high levels of immigration and mobility. This book is intended to contribute to our knowledge and understanding of what really works in urban education.

This book examines connections between policy contexts, school experiences and everyday activities of children growing up in the global city of Singapore. In particular, it explores how Singapore children’s everyday experiences inside and outside of school shape their orientations towards educational success. Alongside an analysis of school life and educational policies, it also considers children’s out-of-school activities, including leisure, homework, and enrichment activities, and connections between these and their school-based activities. The book draws on empirical data from Primary 4 classes in two Singapore schools in the form of student-completed surveys, classroom ethnographies, student responses to a learning dialogues activity, and a re-enactment of one child's out-of-school life, as well as curriculum and policy analysis. It provides readers with an in-depth understanding of Singapore Primary 4 children’s experiences inside and outside of school, including the structure of timetables and pedagogical approaches encountered in school lessons, children’s enjoyment of activities inside and outside of school, children’s engagement and wellbeing at school, and the impact of Singapore’s educational policies on children’s learning experiences. Moving beyond a simplistic focus on Singapore children’s academic performance in international high-stakes testing, the book offers a comprehensive exploration of their lives inside and outside of school. This holistic approach is unique in the Singapore context and contributes to a greater understanding of children’s everyday lives in the city.

Making a Global City critically examines the themes of diversity and community in a single primary school, the Clinton Street Public School in Toronto, between 1920 and 1990.

In 2014, The Urban Education Collaborative at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte hosted its first biennial International Conference on Urban Education (ICUE) in Montego Bay, Jamaica. In 2016, the second hosting of the conference took place in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Additionally, in 2018, the third hosting of the conference took place in Nassau, Bahamas. These solution-focused conferences brought together students, teachers, scholars, public sector and business professionals as well as others from around the world to present their research and best practices on various topics pertaining to urban education. With ICUE’s inspiration, this book is a response to the growing need to highlight the multifaceted aspects of urban education particularly focusing on common issues and solutions in urban environments (e.g., family and community engagement, student academic achievement, teacher preparation and professional development, targeted instructional and disciplinary interventions, opportunity gaps, culturally-relevant and sustaining practices, etc.). Additionally, with this book, we seek to better understand the challenges facing urban educators and students and to offer progressive initiatives toward resolutions. This unique compilation of work is organized under four major themes all targeted at critically addressing concerns that may inhibit the success of urban learners and providing solutions that have implications for curriculum design, development, and delivery; teacher preparation and teaching diverse populations; career readiness and employment; and even more nuanced issues related to foster care, undocumented students and mental health, sustainable consumption, childhood marriage, food deserts, and marine life and urban communities.

Half of Toronto’s population is born outside of Canada and over 140 languages are spoken on the city's streets and in its homes. How to build community amidst such diversity is one of the global challenges that Canada – and many other western nations – has to face head on. Making a Global City critically examines the themes of diversity and community in a single primary school, the Clinton Street Public School in Toronto, between 1920 and 1990. From the swift and seismic shift from a Jewish to southern European demographic in the 1950s to the gradual globalized community starting in the 1970s, Vipond eloquently and clearly highlights the challenges posed by multicultural citizenship in a city that was dominated by Anglo-Protestants. Contrary to recent well-documented anti-immigrant rhetoric in the media, Making a Global City celebrates one of the world’s most multicultural cities while stressing the fact that public schools are a vital tool in integrating and accepting immigrants and children in liberal democracies.