ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the physical and social settings of the Sunny High International Access Project program. It provides an understanding of why international high-school curriculum programs have emerged at a particular time in China. Sunny High International Division is a boarding school. It is surrounded by school walls that separate the school from resident apartments. The educational landscape in China has been changed since the 1980s. The market-oriented economic reforms that aim to modernize Chinese society have profoundly influenced Chinese educational reforms. China's selective examination system has a very long history. Chinese students' promotion to the next level of schooling is largely determined by their performance on entrance examinations. International high-school curriculum programs in China emerge at a particular time when Chinese education markets connect with global education markets. Neoliberal globalization of education policy provides the conditions and possibilities for dominant social groups to build connections between practices, interests, rhetorical discourses, common senses, and social forces.
