Beyond the bling: fractured coherence and identity diffusion in British satellite schools in China

The rapid expansion of branded international school networks, particularly British-branded schools across Asia, is reshaping the international education landscape and raising questions about how these institutions construct identity across contexts. This paper examines how vision, mission, and heritage statements express institutional identity within British-branded schools in China, focusing on three Dulwich-affiliated campuses: Dulwich College Suzhou, Dulwich International High School Suzhou, and Dehong International Chinese School Shanghai. Using glocalisation and discourse analysis, we show how global brand elements are reinterpreted under differing regulatory and stakeholder conditions. Our findings propose a typology – Transplant, Pragmatic, and Contextualised Satellites – demonstrating the varied identities of satellite schools.