The reorganization of public education: The (re)positioning internationally oriented private schools in local educational systems using the example of two 'global cities'

• Applicant: Dr. Tomoko Kojima
• Subject Area: Education Systems and Educational Institutions ; General Education and History of Education
• Term: from 2018 to 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 411018936

• Final Report Year: 2024

Final Report Abstract

The internationally comparative, qualitative study investigated the question of whether and how private schools with international profiles are currently bringing about a change in the way local public education is organized in the light of globalization and the transformation of the state. The current status of the differently constituted internationally oriented private schools and their position in the local educational organization were examined in the contexts of two global cities, Frankfurt/Rhine-Main and Tokyo. According to the qualitative evaluation of secondary materials such as education statistics and documents on local education policies as well as expert interviews with public education administrations and selected private schools, a common tendency in the structural shift in the organization of education can be theoretically identified apart from substantial differences and the varying intensity of increasing significance depending on regions and school types: On the one hand, differentiation and distinction motives of the internationally oriented private schools can be observed in relation to the local public educational offerings. Particularly due to their economic considerations or their alternative profiles based on individuality and liberal ideas, a boundary is formally drawn with public schools. On the other hand, the identification of internationally oriented private schools with the local school systems can be found in their dealings with the local addressees, their connectivity or their interdependency relations in the local educational organizations. Considering the governance perspective and the systems theory approach on inclusion and exclusion, the case study allows us to semantically describe a decentralized structure and a dissolution of boundaries between or a hybridity of national and non-national, public state and private education instances as well as a successive diffusion of economic elements in the local education system, despite the existence of state-led vertical governance practices in both regions. The exclusive inclusion of internationally oriented private schools can promote homogeneous structures and exclusionary factors in the local school system.

Publications

• Jenseits des methodologischen Nationalismus?. Jenseits des Nationalen?, 165-182. Verlag Barbara Budrich.
  Kojima, Tomoko
  
• „Gegenwärtige Internationalisierungsprozesse der schulischen Bildung in Deutschland und in Japan im Vergleich“. Arbeitstagung an der Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main, 27.-28.05.2021.
  Kojima, T.
  
• International ausgerichtete Privatschulen im lokalen Kontext – Scharnierstelle wirtschaftlicher Globalisierung?. DDS – Die Deutsche Schule, 2022(4), 422-432.
  Kojima, Tomoko
  
• „Internationalisierungsprozesse schulischer Bildung in der Global City Tokyo“. 18. Deutschsprachiger Japanologentag an der Heinrich-Heine Universität Düsseldorf, 24.- 26.08.2022.
  Kojima, T.
  
• Internationalisierung der Bildung am Beispiel der Privatschulen in Deutschland und Japan. Schule und Gesellschaft, 65-78. Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden.
  Kojima, Tomoko
  
• Globalisierung und lokale Bildungsorganisation. Schule und Gesellschaft. Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden.
  Kojima, Tomoko