The Global Childhoods Project: Learning and Everyday Life in Three Global Cities

This chapter provides an overview of the conceptual and methodological framework of the Global Childhoods research project. Situated in three global cities of Melbourne, Hong Kong, and Singapore, this project explores connections between policy contexts, school experiences and everyday activities of children and the shaping of their orientations to educational success. In order to better understand the intersections of education policy, practice and everyday life for children, we draw on the concept of “lifeworlds”, which has a rich history in social research as a framework for examining how people and groups experience the world. Moreover, instead of focusing on whose education system is more efficient, or better at producing better outcomes, this research seeks to gain deeper understandings about children’s lived experiences, academic performance and orientations to success by investigating children’s everyday lifeworlds (in and out-of-school experiences).