Escape from Rote or Creation of Social Advantage? Motivations and Experiences of Parents Choosing International Schools in Pune

In recent decades, schools offering international curricula such as the International Baccalaureate (IB) and Cambridge have significantly increased in India, a country with a highly stratified schooling system. Primarily serving expatriates prior to the 2000s, these schools are increasingly attracting local elite and aspirational middle-class families. Given their growing popularity, these schools play an increasingly significant role in India’s evolving educational landscape. Drawing upon in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 20 parents, the present study is a qualitative inquiry into the motivations and experiences of parents who had chosen international schools for their children in Pune, Maharashtra. It aimed to explore the sort of ‘sensemaking’ parents engaged in choosing these schools and to attend to their experiences with these schools. The narratives revealed the varying considerations of parents, ranging from avoiding rote learning to strategies for (re)producing social advantage in the current neoliberal regime. It also highlighted the power dynamic between upper-class parents and the schools’ management and teachers, which I argue plays a pivotal role in class (re)production. The parents’ experiences also suggest stratification within the international school landscape, with differential quality and fees indicating an expansion of this segment.