As a result of rapid changes in student demographics, many international schools are faced with visibly entrenched student cliques based on nationality (or language), which may appear to undermine the school’s mission to nurture ‘international-mindedness’ and parents’ desire for their children to learn English and become ‘international’.

What is less visible is the way the dominant culture of the school’s educators, leadership and (hidden) curriculum actively promotes the formation of these student cliques as a result of its racial biases. To dismantle structural racism, we need to first understand how students internalize the hidden curriculum and how educators unwittingly contribute to it on our campuses.

Learn from the world’s first study of structural racism in international schools. This session draws on data collected through one-year of participant observation and over 130 in-depth interviews with students, alumni, educators and parents at an international school in East Asia and published in Growing Up in Transit: The Politics of Belonging at an International School.