Will the Harry Potter Magic Last? Cultural Commodification and Its Contradictions in the Franchising of British Private Schools in China

Abstract

Abstract Transnational education has attained increasing significance at the K-12 school level. This trend is seen in China with the recent expansion of offshore branch campuses that are exported from major Anglophone countries, most notably the UK. In recent years, many British private schools have set up franchised branches in China’s international school market. This paper investigates how these franchised schools manage to forge a distinctive institutional identity in China, using document analysis of 28 British school brands and case studies of two schools. Informed by the theories of the experience economy and commodity-sign, this paper explores how a “British school experience” is created through the reproduction of particular cultural objects and rituals, and is transformed into a new form of commodity prized for its sign value. I argue that this phenomenon represents an advanced stage of commodification in international schooling. This paper also discusses the internal contradictions between cultural commodification and education, as well as the external challenges that have emerged as the schools confront a changing policy context in China’s private education sector.