Abstracts
Abstract
This article examines how British Columbia (BC) portrays its offshore school program on its government websites. BC offshore schools currently operate in 11 countries, teaching the provincial curriculum to students from the local host country. Our critical discourse analysis of BC provincial government websites and videos shows that the curriculum is portrayed as a brand and the program’s rationales and goals are inconsistent. BC portrays its curriculum as a global brand that is more progressive, modern, and worldly than the countries that host offshore schools. However recent BC curriculum initiatives, such as Indigenous perspectives and knowledge, core competencies, and place-based learning are mostly absent from the discourses on the websites and videos. Based on these findings, we propose that BC revisit the rationalization for the offshore school program and how it is officially portrayed because the portrayal of curriculum as a branded product blurs the lines between public and private spaces.
Keywords:
- British Columbia offshore schools,
- British Columbia,
- international curriculum,
- curriculum brand
Résumé
Cet article examine la manière dont la Colombie-Britannique (C.-B.) représente son programme d’écoles extraterritoriales (offshore schools en anglais) sur les sites Internet de son gouvernement. Les écoles extraterritoriales de la C.-B. sont présentement actives dans 11 pays où elles enseignent le programme d’études provincial aux étudiants du pays d’accueil. Notre analyse du discours critique des sites Web et des vidéos du gouvernement provincial de la C.-B. démontre que le programme scolaire y est représenté comme s’il s’agissait d’une marque commerciale et que les justifications et les objectifs du programme ne sont pas cohérents. La C.-B. représente son programme scolaire comme une marque mondiale qui serait plus progressiste, plus moderne et plus sophistiquée que les pays qui accueillent les écoles extraterritoriales. Cependant, les initiatives récentes du programme de la C.-B., telles que les perspectives et les connaissances autochtones, les compétences de base et l’apprentissage axé sur le territoire sont pour la plupart absentes du discours que l’on trouve sur ses sites Web et ses vidéos. À partir de ces résultats, nous proposons que la C.-B. réexamine sa rationalisation des écoles extraterritoriales et la manière dont elles sont officiellement représentées, car la représentation du programme scolaire comme produit de marque estompe les frontières entre les espaces publics et privés.
Mots-clés :
- Écoles extraterritoriales de la Colombie-Britannique,
- Colombie-Britannique,
- curriculum mondial,
- marque mondiale
Appendices
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