Educational Migration across Ecological System Levels: Broadening the PPCT Model to Incorporate International Students’ Migration and Cross-setting Transitions

Abstract

This article considers the implications of educational migration for the students who move. More specifically, it considers how their educational migration changes the ecological niches in which they develop following their particular developmental requirements. Guided by Bronfenbrenner's PPCT model of human development, I explore how educational migration operates across multiple levels of the ecological system, from students' immediate environments - their microsystem - to their classrooms, the links between home and school and the structural inequalities that frame their educational path - the macrosystem and chronosystem. Through the case of a set of three sisters who moved from township schools in South Africa to an International Baccalaureate (IB) World School in China, I unpack how educational migration across a resource-poor and overcrowded school setting to a new setting with different affordances and constraints shapes their educational experience. I then illustrate how structural inequalities shape their educational path. In so doing, I also illustrate how the PPCT model helps to unpack the changing interactions between the ecological niches to which students move and their educational development over time. The research employs a qualitative research design. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with the siblings in order that they might share their reflections on their experiences of learning, adaptation and identity formation. Interview data were then thematically organized and patterns considered in relation to the various components of the PPCT model. Through this, I explored how the affordances and constraints on their educational experience related to their microsystem, mesosystem and macrosystem, and, further, how their chronosystem might have contributed to their educational experiences. The findings highlight the importance of transition out of overcrowded and resource-constrained schools with limited opportunities for pedagogical innovation to the IB setting for developing the siblings' resilience, agency, adaptability and identity.