Elite Education in Singapore: The Reproduction of Transnational Elites in an Elite Independent School

• In Event: Intersections of National and Transnational Class Formations, Postcoloniality, and Globalization in Elite Schools: Project Updates

Abstract

1. Objectives or purposes
This paper has two purposes. The first is to show the “transnational class socialization” (Ball, 2010) at work in an elite school in Singapore as the school envisions to reproduce students to be trans/national elites. The second purpose is to reveal the unexamined politics of elite education in meritocratic Singapore.

2. Perspective(s) or theoretical framework
A few sociological concepts will be used as lynch pins to study the socialization patterns and reproduction of a trans/national elite class in an elite school in Singapore. This study is also situated within the sociology of elite education and class/social reproduction (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1990; Howard & Gaztambide-Fernandez (2010); van Zanten, 2010; Gaztambide-Fernandez, 2009) as the case study foregrounds the unexamined politics around elite education in meritocratic Singapore. The conceptual vocabulary, “tactical globalization” (Koh, 2010) is extended to the analysis of elite education in Singapore to reveal the meta-pragmatic ideological role of elite schooling and the reproduction of a trans/national elite formation as Singapore wills to position itself as an economic powerhouse.

3. Methods, techniques, or modes of inquiry
This ethnographic case study is analyzed within extant literature in three key areas: the sociology of elite education and reproduction, transnational class formation and globalization.

4. Data sources, evidence, objects, or materials
Field-notes, transcribed interviews as well as newspaper articles on the case study school are the data sources used in the paper.

5. Results and/or substantiated conclusions or warrants for arguments/point of view.
Schools as “transnational state apparatus” (Ball, 2010) has been given little attention in the literature on globalization, elite education and schooling, particularly in global cities such as Singapore. This paper will illuminate not only Singapore’s “tactical globalization”, but also how elite education has become ideological state machinery for engineering a new class of trans/national elites for Singapore’s global economy aspirations. The paper will also reveal the peculiarities of doing class analysis in Singapore’s staunchly meritocratic system, also deeply embedded in its education system.

6. Scientific or scholarly significance of the study or work
The social engineering of elites through the state ideological apparatus of schooling in Asian contexts is visibly absent in the sociology of education literature. This case study elite school will fill the research gap and also provide ethnographic evidence of the “socialization patterns” at work in the elite school known to produce trans/national elites for Singapore. Of significance is this case study offers up a peculiarity for doing class analysis as the doctrine of meritocracy, deeply entrenched in its education system, overrides contentions of class privilege and educational advantage.

Author

• Aaron Koh, National Institute of Education - Nanyang Technological University