Description
The globalization of schooling has become a lively focus for research in the field of international education; however, few scholars have looked at specific model “global” schools. This history of French schools outside of France, and specifically French schools in New York, proposes that the network of over 490 French schools in 130 countries constitutes a fruitful field of research into globalization in practice in elementary and secondary education. A case study of the Lycée Français de New York (1935 – present) and other French schools in New York explores how the French national education system functions not only beyond the hexagon of France itself, but also beyond the strictly colonial “civilizing mission” that was advanced by French schools in both French colonies and former colonies. The history of these New York schools, dating back to the early nineteenth century, also provides insights into French cultural diplomacy and the changing nature of Franco-American relations through the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries.
About the Author
Jane Flatau Ross is an educator with over 40 years’ experience in the field of international education, including a long career at the Lycée Français de New York. She is the founder and President of the French Heritage Language Program, an organization that provides French language instruction and support to Francophone immigrants in the United States.
Jane received her BA from Swarthmore College, majoring in history and French, her MA from Hunter College in English, and a PhD in International Education from New York University.
Jane is the co-author of a number of scholarly papers and book chapters concerning the development of French Heritage Language programs, bilingual and dual language initiatives. She was awarded the Legion of Honor and the Palmes Académiques by the French government for her service to French education.
Kimberly Potowski –
With deft scholarship and engaging prose, Ross clearly lays out 200 years of French education in New York City, enriching our understanding of French history, Franco-American relations, and the rich potential of global schooling initiatives – including increasingly necessary heritage language programs – in creating truly intercultural citizens.
—Kimberly Potowski
Professor of Hispanic Linguistics
University of Illinois at Chicago
Celeste Schenck –
In this elegant mix of memoir and serious historical and scholarly investigation, Jane Ross directs our attention to the achievement of French schools abroad in accomplishing important and evolving cultural work for the French nation since the 19th century. Her analysis is rich and complex, for in such schools as the Lycée Français de New York, the educational experience is not uni-directional or even merely bi-lingual: American students learn French; alongside them French students learn English, and speakers of languages other than French and English learn both. Ross has a firm hand both on the historical role of French education abroad over two centuries—that of preserving various cultural and political articulations of “Frenchness” — and the layered, complex, global education inevitably taking place in the classrooms of French schools overseas today. For anyone who has studied between two languages, who has been a student of France, French heritage, and culture, and who is deeply interested in the transformative power of international education, Two Centuries of French Schools in New York: The Role of Schools in Cultural Diplomacy is a must read.
— Celeste Schenck
President
The American University of Paris
Alice L. Conklin –
In this wonderfully engaging book Jane Ross restores to view a little-known dimension of French educational rayonnement in the US. A must read for anyone seeking to understand the cultural ambitions of global France today.
—Alice L. Conklin,
Professor of History
Ohio State University
Jean-Marie Guéhenno –
Education has played a major role in shaping French identity. What happens when it becomes international? Jane Ross’ intimate knowledge of French education in New York allows her to draw on that case study to tell a fascinating story about the evolving role of education as a key instrument of French soft power. Her book should become required reading for anybody interested in French soft power.
—Jean-Marie Guéhenno,
French Diplomat, former Under-Secretary-General at the United Nations
Robert O. Paxton –
The French government maintains over 490 Francophone schools around the world, of which one of the most renowned is the Lycée Français de New York. Jane Ross taught there for thirty years. Her engrossing history of French education in New York is thus a unique blend of insider experience and scholarly investigation.
—Robert O. Paxton,
Professor Emeritus of History,
Columbia University
James W. Fraser –
Jane Ross tells the story of Two Hundred Years of French Schools in New York as a compelling and unique chapter in the history of bilingual education. In Ross’s account the New York schools are similar to other bilingual ventures in the goal of truly advancing student’s bilingual capacity and understanding of both cultures, but also unique in the significant role of the French government’s tight control of these U.S. based schools making them truly an outpost of the education offered in France itself. It is a compelling story for anyone concerned with bilingual and bicultural education.
—James W. Fraser
Professor of History and Education
New York University
Herrick Chapman –
Jane Ross has not only written a marvelous history of the Lycée Français de New York, bringing to that analysis deep insight gleaned from three decades teaching in the school. She has also illuminated what this story reveals about French cultural diplomacy, French-American relations, and the challenges educators have faced adapting French ideas about education to new times and diverse locales across the globe. This book makes an important contribution to the study of international education, dual language learning, and a fascinating dimension of New York City’s history over the past two centuries.
—Herrick Chapman
Professor of History and French Studies
New York University