The “best of both worlds”: children, privilege and the anxieties of internationality

• In Event: Children and Youth Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 3: Family Complexity and Transitions to Adulthood

Abstract

This paper applies Sayad’s model of “double absence” to international expatriate elites in two private schools in London and New York. Based on interviews with both elite parents and their children, it focuses on the disjuncture between the parental aspirations for expansion and the concrete practices of re-anchoring mobilized by their children. By focusing on this generational imbalance, the paper shows that the reproduction of internationality generates important “anxieties” which originate in the framing of children as “status projects.” This important pressure generated by the uncertainties of social reproduction on a global scale requires children to “cope” in different ways. International schools offer these resources through a variety of ritualization practices. The paper opens new avenues for research on generational imbalances among elites and shows that family strategies are not always at the direct benefit of the children.

Author

• Victor Devisme, New School For Social Research