Governing International Schools: Polarities, Networks and Actors in Governance Systems

In recent years, global citizenship education (GCE) has been a trending concept used by national and international educational institutions, as well as researchers, to explain the increase in the internationalisation of education. The rise of GCE is set against globalisation and ever more diverse populations within nations, in the condition of super-diversity. GCE has emerged as a result of the shift from multiculturalism to post-multiculturalism. The implication of this shift is an emphasis on international education, where GCE is one of the key markers in schools’ responses to providing an internationally minded curriculum. This at times has resulted in schools incorporating GCE in their visions and mission statements, sometimes without a full understanding of the extent of this concept.This research study focuses on a comparative analysis of GCE in two primary schools, one international school in Singapore (Stamford International) and an independent school in Australia (Coastal College). The research focuses on how these two schools have engaged in the processes of internationalisation of their education through the adoption of international education models, utilising the International Primary Curriculum (IPC) or the International Baccalaureate Programme (IB) and other local curricula to generate hybrid internationally minded education programs.The study is located within the domains of “comparative education” and “international education,” areas of enhanced research interest as a result of the growth of international schools globally and the existence of state and independent schools that have adopted international curricula. An internationally minded curriculum is perceived to evoke notions of inter-culturalism, transnational connectivity, and global sensitivity in its design of curriculum, implicit pedagogical approaches, assessment practices and research knowledge and skills. It is believed that embedded within such a curriculum is a distinctive set of knowledge and skills, relevant to both the global and national schooling landscapes. However, in a more market driven competitive schooling environment, global citizenship education is also at times linked to branding and used by schools to position themselves advantageously in their specific school market contexts.Drawing on various theoretical resources on global education, global citizenship education, international education, as well as theories of post-multiculturalism, this research sought to investigate how each case study school responded to the concept of GCE through their curriculum. The broad overarching research question framing this study is: How have schools, with an internationally-minded focus, responded through the curriculum (IPC and IB respectively) to the impact of globalisation and the attempt to produce global citizens? The research specifically investigated firstly how each case study school has responded to the concept of GCE through their curriculum (IPC and IB). It also aimed to examine the factors that enabled the take-up of GCE through curricula in the two case study schools. Qualitative data from semi-structured interviews, document analysis, school website analysis, as well as field notes, were analysed both inductively and deductively, teasing out the key themes. Document analysis included school policy papers, curriculum materials, syllabuses, websites, newsletters and other forms of documents that shed light on the issues being researched.The research presented a number of important findings. The findings indicate that various factors within the specific contexts of schools, such as curriculum and resources, school culture, school leaders’ and teachers’ values, and the utilisation of human and financial resources play an equally important role in determining and moulding how schools engage with GCE in their quest towards internationalisation. This response was situated in multiple influential contexts, which include the national contexts of the schools, including the nature of each society, the geo-political positioning of the society, the provision of schooling, the nature of schools and the specific policies governing the schools, which have influenced their approaches towards GCE.Firstly, both schools saw a need to navigate the global-local dynamics to engage with an internationalisation that is context-specific. Stamford International’s key curriculum initiatives, predominantly the IPC, the Singapore Math and the Daily Mandarin curriculum, were results of this fusion. Coastal College’s hybridisation of International Baccalaureate Primary Year Programme (PYP) and the Australian curriculum, the adoption of languages such as Japanese, and cultural exchange programmes, were also attempts to link global and national elements in their approach. Despite the above commonality, the “non-government”/ independent status of the Singapore case study school provided greater autonomy for curriculum development, compared with the independent school in Australia, which still needed to adhere to the Australian curriculum requirements or approved alternatives. The above initiatives were also part of both schools’ marketing strategies to remain distinct and to attract potential students in their respective school markets.Secondly, the school leaders in both schools demonstrated cosmopolitan competencies and were hence able to respond to and adopt organisational practices that were aligned to the demands of the 21st century global society. However the Principals’ leadership styles and their management of GCE practices within the schools also affected the GCE take-up in the respective schools.Finally, the targeted utilisation of human and financial resources was also a significant enabler that further cemented both schools’ practices towards GCE. The human resources, which included the selection of staff, appointing teachers with diverse teaching CVs and international experience, value added to the organisation and moved the GCE agenda forward. In the area of financial resources, both schools had a targeted approach in their utilisation of funding for professional development and curriculum development resources aligned to GCE.A key overarching finding of the research relates to the tensions between critical democratic and educational domains and neo-liberal market rationales, which had affected the schools’ decisions in curricula and GCE enactment within both schools. Despite their commitment to GCE ideals, they were mindful about being distinctive and remaining competitive within their educational markets. The global focus was thus linked at one level to their overt branding and positioning in their respective school markets.Overall, this research study has contributed to the existing body of knowledge, particularly in respect of empirical research on GCE practices in schools. The findings of the study and the literature review have resulted in the design of an encompassing conceptual model that is able to capture the multi-faceted nature of GCE and provide a more critical understanding of the GCE concept. Most importantly, the comparative investigation of global citizenship education, which is very much lacking in current research, allowed for the exploration of two varying global and national contexts. Looking at two different contexts also facilitated a broader understanding of the global citizenship education policies, models and practices being studied, and enabled an interrogation of the interwoven local, national and global factors at play in the two research schools. The cross-national comparative perspective of GCE as policies and practices in schools also encourages global inter-culturalism and fosters intercultural exchanges of ideas that school leaders can use to effectively run their schools.

ABSTRACTThe International Baccalaureate (IB) is a secular educational franchise, educating the globally advantaged and potential future leaders. Drawing on Bourdieu, this article involves original interpretivist research, reviewing data surrounding the international IB school and its educational leadership. It presents findings pertinent to the remarkable pervasiveness of Christianity and Christian values in the orientation of IB directors in a Western European context.IB directors foreground Christianity in their make-up. In the fluid global market-place of IB schools, consistency is rare, and highly valued. Through Bourdieu, IB directors emerge as islands, with relative freedom from the State. They lead a secular school, with an implicit Christian orientation. The IB purposefully pluralises the culture of the IB experience through the IB learner Profile (IBLP). In the main, IB school leadership rejects the operational consistency of the IBLP and embraces pluralism through the consistency of Christianity.The international school is an incubator for Anglo Christian values providing cultural laundering, ontologically tied to the imperial gaze in this globalised neo-liberal schooling context: the international gaze.

Over the last forty years, the estimated number of international schools worldwide has increased from under 300 to over 3000 in 2012. This explosion is a response to the needs of a world in which borders are being traversed with ever greater ease and children increasingly need to be prepared for the global opportunities that await them. In this book, international school specialists reflect on where the movement has come from, how it stands and where developments are heading, offering insightful observations on these unique institutions. This is a comprehensive resource for students, researchers and professionals with an interest in the future of education in a globalized world.

This special issue of Teachers College Record—“Minding the Gap in Education Discourse: Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging in Independent and International Schools”—aims to bring attention to independent and international private schools through the lenses of equity, inclusion, and belonging. In this issue, scholars and practitioners address gaps in education and education leadership discourse regarding considerations of equity, inclusion, and belonging. Historically, education discourse regarding equity, inclusion, and belonging has skewed largely toward public and charter education. While, according to the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES), just 9% of PK-12 students nationally are enrolled in independent schools, independent schools nationally have much to contribute to the critical conversation concerning equity across the educational ecosystem. When we expand our attention to include international private schools, the numbers and scale shift dramatically. According to ISC Research, international private schools serve 6.74 million students. When the growing engagement of international private schools in the work of equity, inclusion, and belonging is considered, even more questions and possibilities emerge for the examining, understanding, and acting in research-informed ways on behalf of equity, inclusion, and belonging in education writ large. This special issue insists on the importance of considering schools as national and global systems of learning and socialization, and independent and international schools in particular as important players in the ecosystem of education in the United States and globally. The works in this issue tune us to the complex, multileveled ecosystem that we refer to as PK–12 schooling and to the importance of noticing and acting at all levels of that ecosystem to ensure research-informed thinking, decision-making, action, and impact.

American Public School Administration: A Short Analysis

This study explores conceptualisations of global citizenship education expressed by teachers and students in international schools. Using qualitative research, three schools were investigated in the Netherlands, Finland, and Australia. Data for this study was drawn from phenomenological interviews with secondary school students, teachers, and school leaders. The study’s findings show that young people experience global citizenship through feelings of a global community, by participating in curriculum-based community service, within charity frameworks, but also in student activism. Teachers and school leaders displayed conceptual uncertainty of global citizenship education and tended to stay within their comfort zones. The article concludes that international schools could benefit from more social justice oriented approaches to global citizenship education.

This article presents a scoping review of literature on leadership in international schools from 2012 to 2022 identifying key themes and areas for further research. The review reveals a focus on the challenges of leadership practice within international schooling and outlines how these themes are understood within the reviewed literature body. The article responds to recurring calls for more theorisation around educational leadership within the context of international schooling and research focused on practices of leading embedded within intersectionalities, contextual factors, and place-based ontologies. Drawing on the themes identified within the scoping review, we recommend the examination of leadership development pathways, including current approaches that have not been captured by peer-reviewed literature. Importantly, we argue for complexity-cognisant research that is framed to encompass multiplicity and multi-perspectival investigation across the various iterations of international schools and educational leadership.

This article provides a systematic review of research on leadership in international schools, though not focusing on International Baccalaureate schools which are the focus of a separate paper. International schools are autonomous, private bodies that cater to the globally advantaged. Accordingly, this literature review views them and their leadership through the Bourdieusian concept of distinction. Educational leaders in this context face considerable complexities. International schools thrive on the distinction they confer, it being intrinsic to these schools’ identity. International schools can be understood as existing on a matrix, or spectrum, between conceptions of international and global; equitable and market-place. The review finds that international schools experience considerable unhelpful change and transition, where consistency is highly prized yet difficult to achieve. Along with tensions between their equitable and market orientation, transition emerges as the most significant challenge facing educational leaders in this context.

This article focuses on the challenges faced by educational leaders of international schools in conceptualising international mindedness. Further articles are planned which will focus on how the wider social and school context influence educational leaders’ promotion of international mindedness, and on why educational leaders are drawn to values-leadership models in its promotion. The use of the term international mindedness has grown significantly over the last thirty years. It is now in common usage in many international schools (Hayden et al, 2015), and is used specifically by both the International Baccalaureate and the International Primary Curriculum to describe the core values that underpin the educational programmes they offer. It is a broad concept whose advocates claim it encapsulates the values and ideals of international education that seek to promote greater global understanding and awareness (Hill, 2014). However, the value and appropriateness of the term remain contested (Haywood, 2015; Savva and Stanfield, 2018). There is also a growing body of literature that has highlighted the importance of educational leaders in promoting school-wide values (Hallinger and Huber, 2012; Day et al, 2016). If we are to better understand the significance of international mindedness to the wider field of international schools, we need to develop a greater awareness of what shapes educational leaders’ understanding of a core value such as international mindedness, and what it is they hope to achieve within the wider social and school context within which they are operating. The first section of this article explores how international mindedness is conceptualised and the current debates surrounding it, presenting a conceptual framework for international mindedness that draws on academic literature from the wider field of international education. The second section is based on empirical research carried out into educational leadership in a group of international schools.

PurposeThis paper investigates the interplay between consequences in restorative practices (RP) and the synergies with responsive classroom, particularly in international schools. Addressing critics who deem RP a “soft option”, the study defines “restorative consequences” within the RP framework. It analyses literature and three school policies, focusing on international school needs. Emphasising the importance of accountability, the paper explores the role of logical consequences in preventing perceived permissiveness. By comparing RP and Responsive Classroom, it seeks to guide school leaders in aligning transformative change with their vision and values. This paper aims to enhance understanding, offer practical insights and address challenges in RP implementation.Design/methodology/approachThis research delves into the relationship between RP and consequences in international schools, addressing concerns about RP’s perceived lack of accountability. It defines “restorative consequences” within the RP framework, examining RP integration into school policies. Through a literature review and analysis of three RP policies, the study extracts insights for international schools, emphasising the role of logical consequences in preventing perceived permissiveness. In addition, a comparative evaluation of responsive classroom and RP identifies effective models for transformative change. The research aims to empower international school leaders with informed decision-making, offering insights into challenges and strategies for effective RP implementation in alignment with institutional values.FindingsIn delving into the positive discipline approach advocated by responsive classroom, it becomes evident that there exists a potential synergy between various disciplinary systems. Emphasising logical consequences as a pivotal component in school behaviour policies, it is crucial to apply them through the lens of social discipline window (SDW), specifically the “with” approach, incorporating both high levels of support and accountability. Recognizing this dynamic is essential as the authors endeavour to construct effective policies that not only align with responsive classroom values and methods but also prove practical in real-world application. Furthermore, within the international context, responsive classroom has demonstrated its ability to address the social and emotional needs of third culture kids. This revelation presents compelling grounds for the adoption of responsive classroom in international schools contemplating systemic transformations.Research limitations/implicationsThe study acknowledges limitations stemming from the reviewed RP policies, primarily the exceptional one derived from a large, well-supported school district, which may not be universally applicable, especially in diverse international schools. The potential for reputational damage to RP exists if policies lack comprehensive detailing and troubleshooting for varied classroom scenarios. Teacher testimonials carry significant weight, necessitating greater involvement in RP training and research. International schools face unique challenges in achieving staff “buy-in”, requiring culturally responsive training to overcome Western-centric perceptions. The clash of RP with authoritarian cultures poses challenges, emphasising the need for clear values.Practical implicationsWhile the exemplary RP policy reviewed is from a large, well-supported school district, this may not apply universally, particularly in international schools with diverse affiliations. To safeguard RP’s reputation, detailed policies addressing classroom nuances are crucial. Recognising the influence of teacher testimonials and involving educators in RP training and research is pivotal. International schools face a unique challenge in ensuring staff alignment with RP, requiring culturally responsive training to dispel Western-centric perceptions. Acknowledging RP’s clash with authoritarian cultures, schools must establish clear values. Drawing from educational theorists, future RP research should explicitly explore the consequences–RP relationship, enhancing the understanding of the SDWSocial implicationsThe research’s social implications emphasise the need for transparent and detailed RP policies to prevent reputational damage and rejection. Recognising the influence of teacher testimonials, active involvement of educators in RP training is crucial. For international schools, culturally responsive training is vital to overcome Western-centric perceptions and ensure staff alignment. The study underscores the challenge of RP conflicting with authoritarian cultures, emphasising the importance of clear values. Furthermore, it advocates for a nuanced dialogue on the consequences–RP relationship to enhance understanding within the SDW. These implications stress context-specific and inclusive approaches for effective RP implementation in diverse educational settings.Originality/valueThe research offers significant originality by addressing the underdeveloped literature on the role of RP in international schools. It contributes novel insights by defining “restorative consequences” within the RP framework and examining the interplay between consequences and RP in school policies. The comparative evaluation of Responsive Classroom and RP adds a distinctive dimension, guiding international school leaders in transformative decision-making. Moreover, the study advocates for a culturally responsive approach, challenging Western-centric perceptions. This unique focus on consequences, accountability and cultural considerations positions the research as a pioneering contribution, offering valuable perspectives for effective RP implementation and policymaking in diverse educational settings.

Purpose: This article seeks to investigate the leadership challenges in international schools in one region in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). It particularly examines the dissonance between the more liberal approaches to education prevalent in international schools and the conservative nature of those observed in the Saudi context, unveiling the challenges that this posed for school leaders. Research Methodology: In view of the sensitive and complex nature of the study, it was designed as an exploratory study located within qualitative paradigm, using interviewing for data generation. Individual, semistructured interviews were undertaken with 10 senior leaders from five international schools located in Al-Ahsa Governorate in KSA. Findings: The study highlighted a number of complex challenges faced by international school leaders in KSA mainly linked to issues such as sex segregation, Saudization, and parental expectations. The study also unveiled two coping strategies developed by school leaders—namely, compliance and circumvention. Implications for Research and Practice: The findings of this interesting study will have implications for both research and practice. By venturing into this underexplored and sensitive area, the study not only seeks to develop an empirical picture of leadership practices and challenges in international schools in KSA but also stresses the need for further research to gain insight into cross-cultural complexities. Moreover, highlighting the impact of cultural dissonance on leadership practices will be useful for both the practicing and the future leaders of international schools not only in KSA but in other parts of the world too.

This article applies positional conflict theory to investigate how the proliferation of international schools can create a new layer of educational stratification and deepen inequality of opportunity. Data from five international schools in metropolitan centres across southern China were collected through interviews, school visits, and a survey. The findings demonstrate how international schooling can enable local middle-class students to accumulate distinctive forms of positional advantages that are geared towards global higher education and careers in the global economy. The implications are threefold: (1) demonstrating how international schools can exacerbate educational divides, (2) revealing the nature of advantages created by international schooling, and (3) illuminating how international schooling can reposition students in a global class structure while potentially creating barriers within local/national contexts. The article concludes by calling for more critical attention to the ongoing expansion of international schools.

Although there is an extensive literature across a range of national contexts concerning the evolving role of the school leader, little has been written about the rapidly expanding world of international school leadership. This paper focuses on the top tier of leadership of international schools by drawing on semi-structured interviews with 12 school principals in Malaysia, during which they reflected on the nature of their job and the routes they had taken to headship. It is argued that although the overwhelming majority had taken a school leadership qualification and found elements helpful, they felt that it did not adequately prepare them for their role. Several ways in which international school leadership differs significantly from educational school leadership in other contexts are identified, with principals needing to pay attention to loneliness, transience, cultural differences, governance, business elements, and managing school composition. By identifying key challenges faced by international heads, and by charting the paths that individuals take towards headship, this article seeks to understand the nature of senior leadership in international schools.

School leaders employ essential skills and requisites to lead culturally diversified teams in order to achieve organizational objectives. This study aims to uncover the leadership styles of international school leaders in the culturally diverse environment of Malaysia. In uncovering perspectives on cultural diversity, this exploration employs a qualitative approach using interviews with four school leaders, observation field notes and documentary analysis from three international schools. Qualitative data analysis rendered a contextualization of instructional and transformational leadership attributes in international school leadership. The perspectives of school leaders specified practices of creating a shared mission and vision through the school’s core values, curriculum and co-curricular activities while encouraging harmonious interaction among the members of the international school community. Despite the presence of challenges stemming from cultural differences, the school leaders highlighted the vitality of their role in providing a safe learning environment. Hence, this paper provides guidelines to prepare potential school leaders with the essential leadership skills for international schools in multicultural environments and for the advancement of culturally responsive leadership in the globalized era of the 21st century.

Global citizenship education practices in Singapore and Australia: the fusion of the global eye with the national eye