Internationalisation strategies of Brazilian private schools

The objective of this work is to reflect on unequal schooling opportunities in Brazil, focusing on certain characteristics that mark, nowadays, the schooling trajectories of young people from middle- and high-income families. Our previous researches showed that an important part of these families are increasingly investing in international resources, seen as a vital tool for their kids’ success. This led to questions about the repercussion of this phenomenon in the strategies used by schools to fulfil parental demands. The research focuses on private schools in high-income neighbourhoods in Belo Horizonte. Interviews with school staff, an analysis on their website and other printed materials revealed that: (a) around half of the researched schools develop internationalisation initiatives such as: special programmes of foreign language learning; bilingual pedagogical projects; and trips abroad and (b) these initiatives could start in a precocious age (since kindergarten), especially foreign language learning.