The Lived Experiences of Host Country National Teachers in International Schools

The growth of international schools, particularly non-traditional schools, driven by demand from host-nation families for an English-medium international education, has resulted in increasing numbers of Western English-speaking expatriates teaching abroad. Although several typologies of international school teachers have been developed, international school teachers in general, and expatriates in particular, remain under-represented in the literature. This paper explores teachers’ reasons for choosing to work in non-traditional international schools in Vietnam through a thematic analysis of interviews with expatriate teachers. The analysis shows that the teachers’ reasons for teaching internationally are complex, and often exceed the limitations of typologies that seek to categorise teachers. Travel, change, adventure and employment opportunities all featured in these teachers’ accounts, while an ideological commitment to international education did not. The analysis also found that some teachers became ‘accidental travellers’, taking advantage of unforeseen opportunities to work internationally, while for others the decision was strategic and based on career-advancement. The paper argues for a more complex understanding of who international school teachers are and why they choose to work internationally, suggesting that fixed typologies are limited and pointing to further work that needs to be done to understand the experiences of expatriate teachers.

An increasingly global economy has produced a growing demand for teachers to work in international schools. However, data about teachers who elect to move abroad and work in international settings are limited. The lack of research in this area is surprising, given the relatively large number of expatriate teachers who work in international schools. The purpose of this study was to gain a better understanding of how expatriate teachers perceive their experiences in international schools and the role that these perceptions may play in their decisions to continue at a school or to seek other employment. In order to explore these topics, I completed an in-depth study of five participants who had each worked in multiple international schools during the course of their careers. The study utilized the following three research techniques: semi-structured interviews utilizing an interview guide; a particularistic case-study analysis approach focused on participants' professional life histories; and a three part cross-case analysis of interview data that allowed for the emergence of preliminary ethnographic generalizations about the culture of international school teachers. While only a small group of participating teachers was used for this research, rich qualitative data emerged that suggest the following: (a) The teachers in this study care deeply about how they are treated by their administrators and are more likely to leave a posting where they do not feel fully trusted to do their jobs. (b) The participants value transparency about working and living conditions during the recruitment process. (c) Participants indicated a need for easy access to communication with friends and family in order to feel fully supported by their school. (d) Participants suggested that they and other international school teachers they knew seek novelty and adventure; consequently, teachers may leave even highly positive situations. (e) Overseas teachers appear to form an occupational culture that shapes their expectations of employment and the living conditions in international school settings. This study began to define what the culture of international school teachers looks like and the values and preferences that are associated with teaching in an international school.

With the explosive growth of the international school industry and the rise of nontraditional international schools, the experiences of expatriate teachers have gained importance. This qualitative, hermeneutical phenomenological study addressed an under-researched problem of marketisation in Chinese internationalised schools by exploring expatriate teachers’ experiences. Data collection involved individual interviews and focus groups, capturing insights from a diverse sample of 16 expatriate teachers who had worked in Chinese internationalised schools for at least one school year. Oliver’s expectation-confirmation theory served as the theoretical framework, affording the study an expectation-versus-reality lens. Participants’ expectations of employment in Chinese internationalised schools were inflated by these institutions’ “beautiful façade”, involving a carefully crafted image of professionalism, credibility, and elitism. The reality behind the façade revealed a focus on profit at the expense of educational quality, customer-service orientations towards parents and students, a diminished role of expatriate teachers, and draining workloads. The study makes a novel contribution to the literature by exemplifying specific aspects of marketisation affecting educators. The findings have implications for the management of expatriate teachers in for-profit international schools and expatriate candidates applying for jobs in China.

This paper responds to Bailey and Cooker’s (2019) paper entitled ‘Exploring Teacher Identity in International Schools: Key Concepts for Research’ in which the authors offer a typology of international school teachers based on interviews with non-qualified teachers. This paper builds upon the typology of international school teachers by offering a framework for researching international school teacher identity. The framework is illustrated by interview data with an expatriate teacher in a Chinese Internationalised School, both of which remain under-researched. Chinese Internationalised Schools typically cater to local middle-class elites and offer some form of international curricula, such as the International Baccalaureate Diploma, alongside study of the Chinese national curriculum. Rather than utilising a priori teacher types derived from existing typologies, the framework utilises teachers’ lived experiences to inductively construct a ‘snap-shot’ of their teacher identity. Drawing upon postmodern approaches to teacher identity, identity is conceptualised as an ongoing dialogic process. Interview data with an international school teacher called Tyron (a pseudonym) is utilised in order to take the reader through how the framework is intended to be put into practice. The framework is an alternative approach to researching international school teachers that guides researchers away from labelling teachers by observation and instead looks at what they do and their histories. Moreover, this approach involves both the researcher and the teacher, and not, as is typically the case, only the researcher.

The purpose of this qualitative, hermeneutical phenomenological study was to understand expatriate teachers’ experiences with the leadership in Chinese internationalised schools. A sample of 15 expatriate teachers with diverse demographics and backgrounds, among them nine licenced teachers from non-Anglophone countries, contributed their insights in individual interviews, written protocols, and focus groups. All participants had worked in Chinese internationalised schools for at least one school year and had experiences with the schools’ leaders. Their accounts revealed that senior leadership in Chinese internationalised schools is local and driven by profit and the Chinese work culture. Expatriate leaders, while supportive, mostly occupy mid-level management positions. Expatriate teachers feel insignificant to their leaders and respond to dissatisfaction with the management by terminating employment rather than adjusting. The findings confirm prior research, corroborating reports of unskilled and unstable leadership in international schools. The tokenistic role of expatriate managers, who may be hired for their foreign appearance and have little influence on managing the schools, is a new and unexpected finding. The study narrows a gap in the literature and has implications for recruiting and managing expatriate teachers in international schools.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to introduce the rapidly growing body of expatriate teachers in international schools’ as a neglected community of non-corporate expatriates, and presents a research agenda.Design/methodology/approachThis paper presents a conceptual framework for identifying a possible reason for this neglect; the teachers in international schools can be viewed as “middling actors”, caught in a “middle space” of the emergent “business expatriate” concept, between the discussion about corporate expatriates and precariat workers.FindingsThis paper reveals that the body of expatriate teachers in international schools is growing rapidly, and is forecast to reach up to 800,000 by 2026, yet the literature still largely neglects their realities of everyday life as an expatriate.Research limitations/implicationsThe concept of an international school defies consensus agreement, and this paper uses data that is academically debatable in its accuracy. The figures should be viewed as the maximum amount.Practical implicationsThe concept of the “middling actor” can be further developed, and international schools offer a rich area of research for expatriate researchers.Originality/valueTeachers in international schools have escaped discussion as expatriates yet warrant greater attention. This paper introduces the concept of “middling” and the “middling actor” as new, yet potentially useful, sociological concepts. The concept of the “middling actor” within the broad “business expatriate” concept can be developed in many different ways and needs further discussion and theorization.

A scheme of professional development for teachers, leading to the award of Advanced Certificate, Advanced Diploma or degree of Master of Education, has been in operation at the University of Bath School of Education for some years. Recently this modular scheme has been extended to become more accessible to teachers in international and overseas schools around the world, with modules taught in a range of locations internationally including a Summer School held annually in July at the University of Bath. The Methods of Educational Enquiry (MEE) module provides an introduction to aspects of educational research and is recommended to participants as an early module for study: between 1992 and 1993 this module has thus been taught on more occasions than any other, in a number of different locations and by a number of different tutors. This paper considers issues arising from the implementation of an instrument for the evaluation of some aspects of the taught component of the MEE module in a wide range...

This paper is a response to a recently published article in this journal entitled ‘Precarious privilege: personal debt, lifestyle aspirations and mobility among international school teachers’ by Rey, Bolay, and Gez (2020. “Precarious Privilege: Personal Debt, Lifestyle Aspirations and Mobility Among International School Teachers.” Globalisation, Societies and Education, 1–13. doi:10.1080/14767724.2020.1732193). In this follow-up paper, we take the notion of ‘precarious privilege’ as the starting point for theorising an emerging concept derived from our recent research into teachers’ experiences of turnover in the field of International Schooling. We call this concept ‘transition capital’, which encompasses a newer ‘positive sociology’ approach, imagining the social reality of being a teacher in an International School setting as being a mixture of both the negative and positive. We believe that the concept of ‘transition capital’ complements the notion of ‘precarious privilege’ by recognising the paradoxical nature of the teacher experience. It also attempts to go beyond it by showing how the positive and the negative are dialectical in nature. We also seek to flesh out the burgeoning concept of ‘transition capital’ by explaining its origins in the notion of ‘resilience capital’ and sketching a future research agenda.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate if teacher self-efficacy predicts teacher work engagement for expatriate teachers in international schools in China. Results from simple linear regression indicated a statistically significant predictive relationship between teacher self-efficacy and teacher work engagement. Multiple linear regression analysis indicated that the student engagement dimension of self-efficacy was the most statistically significantly predictive of study participants’ overall perception of their level of work engagement and that the emotional engagement and social engagement with students domains were the most statistically significantly predictive of study participants’ overall perceptions of self-efficacy. The data suggest that investigating teacher self-efficacy and teacher work engagement can address the problem of expat teacher retention and training at international schools in China.

The international school sector in Hong Kong makes a substantial contribution to educational provision in the city, employing many expatriate teachers. Wellbeing has taken on increasing prominence in international school discourses, but little research has investigated how the wellbeing of international school teachers is influenced by school-level factors. For the purposes of this study, thirteen expatriate teachers from ten different international schools in Hong Kong were interviewed and the data were analysed thematically. The teachers’ wellbeing was found to be influenced by relationships with students, colleagues and senior leaders, and a pervasive climate of accountability. Teachers felt a sense of social isolation associated with cultural differences, and often did not feel supported by their schools. Teachers’ wellbeing, it is proposed, may be improved by the articulation of a shared vision which focuses on classroom-level interactions, an affiliative climate, and an institutional environment which addresses social isolation and protects teachers against an excessive climate of performativity and accountability.

Traditional professional development methods are not optimal for international school educators because of isolation, lack of funds and time to attend, disconnected content and inability to make a difference in the pedagogical approaches teachers use. The creation of online Personal Learning Networks (PLNs) has been suggested as an augment to or a replacement for traditional approaches. The purpose of this mixed methods study was three-fold: (a) to discover if international school educators are using social media for professional learning and if so, what tools they are choosing to use, (b) to discover if a relationship exists between the use of social media tools for informal professional learning and change in the pedagogical practices used by the teachers in international schools; and finally, (c) to describe how the use of social media may lead to a change in pedagogical practice. An explanatory sequential mixed method design was used to achieve this purpose, including 270 participants in the first phase and five in the second phase. Data collection included a quantitative online survey instrument and qualitative online interviews. Revealed in the findings was that international school teachers use various social media tools that meet specific needs, to build a PLN. Through intentional action international school educators supplemented professional development and changed their teaching practice creating an expanded and more authentic, constructivist learning environment. The PLNs in this study were able to reduce or remove the major concerns regarding professional development in international schools such as cost, contextual relevance, unvaried approaches and limited time.

Gonzalez Rey has advanced the cultural-historical concept of sense through introducing the interrelated concepts of subjective sense and subjective configuration for explaining the development of human relations as a form of social production. The subtleness of Gonzalez Rey’s theoretical concepts when applied to the study of families in culturally diverse settings has provided nuanced understandings of children’s social productions. However, in this chapter his concepts are drawn upon to better understand how expatriate teachers working in an Australian international school situated in the Middle East socially produced cultural diversity. The focus of the study was on examining the social practice of sharing food at lunch times. During the sharing of food, dialogue acted as an important tool for illuminating individual subjectivities and for generating social subjectivities about cultural diversity. It was theorized that a sense of cultural belonging was created through the lunchtime practice of sharing food. Legitimization of cultural lunches was socially produced through reference to professional documents that detailed the concept of a sense of belonging. Indicators contributed to the development of the concept of cultural production realized through the lunchtime practices of teachers in an international school in the Middle East where cultural diversity is the norm.

The retention of teachers and school professional staff is a challenge for the development and management of schools, particularly for international schools with difficulties in recruiting qualified teachers and school professional staff from overseas. However, only a few research projects have focused on how administrative styles influence the turnover of international school teachers and school professional staff. The researcher collected data from two semi-structured interview sessions with 51 international school teachers who have taught at an international school for more than a decade in one of two metropolitan districts in mainland China. This project aims, through the lens of Social Cognitive Career Theory, to understand why international school teachers and school professional staff decide to stay in a particular international school for their teaching career development. The participants indicated "acknowledgement from upper leadership", "classroom/workplace authorities", and "well-established facilities" to explain their current occupation as experienced international school teachers. The findings also outline potential solutions which could control the high turnover rate in international schools and local schools in the East Asian regions.

The international school context today is characterised by rapid change, and a lack of shared terminology or agreement about when or where such schools originated. It would be safe to claim, however, that international schools had their recent origins principally in the need for globally mobile professional parents to arrange education for their children while located away from the home context, and that the majority of such schools have been and continue to be English medium. It is not surprising, therefore, that the majority of teachers attracted to, and sought by, such schools have been native English speakers educated themselves in an English-medium environment (Hayden and Thompson 2008). In the absence of a shared accepted definition of the concept of an international school it is impossible to be precise about the exact number of such teachers. The conclusion reached by Canterford (2003), however, based on an analysis of international school details held by Inter - national Schools Services (ISS 2010) in 1997-8, that the teaching staff of such schools are dominated by Americans and British, seems plausible. Equally plausible is the anecdotal evidence suggesting that increasing numbers of native English speakers from New Zealand, Australia, Ireland, Canada and South Africa are now joining the teaching staff of such schools. The balance of nationalities among international school teachers varies in different parts of the world and may relate not only to their native language, or how far they wish to travel from ‘home’, but also the extent to which taking a teaching post outside one’s home country appears attractive. Joslin points out that ‘Unlike international companies where personnel are posted from headquarters in the home country to other locations, and are given pre-departure crosscultural training and orientation programmes, teachers choose to apply for a post overseas’ (2002: 34). Whether teachers choose to move from their home context may be influenced by the extent of the risk such a choice will represent. Sutcliffe, observing in 1991 that most teachers in international schools at that time were British or American, linked this point to the fact that teachers in the UK and USA are not civil servants. For those in countries where teachers are classified as civil servants, he argued, reluctance to move outside the ‘home’education system may be linked to ‘the lack of freedom to move and to respond to openings as they occur, the national career and pension structures, and the general bureaucracy’ (1991: 175).

The worldwide growth of international schools has prompted increasing interest in the growing body of expatriate teachers who choose to work in them. The decision to work internationally is complex, encompassing both push and pull factors that change throughout a teacher's career. This qualitative study explores the motivations and career choices of 20 international school teachers. Through a reflexive thematic analysis, we identified two primary themes in teachers' accounts of their decisions: personal growth and professional identity. The theme of travel, learning, and personal growth captures motivations typically related to travel and adventure that drive the decision to work internationally, including the opportunity to travel and experience new cultures, develop global mindedness, and learn more about the wider world. The theme of professional development and teacher autonomy explores participants' motivations related to the opportunities to teach in ways that are professionally fulfilling in international schools, which often provide freedom from what are perceived to be constrained or limited opportunities in the educational systems of participants' home countries. The study also explores how the evolution of teachers' decision-making processes and motivations evolved throughout their careers, revealing a transition from initial, somewhat random moves overseas to subsequent, more strategic moves aligned with higher expectations around professionalism and autonomy. These findings highlight the complex interplay of changing personal and professional aspirations that influence teachers' decisions to work in international school contexts. This study offers further empirical support for our understanding of international school teachers and critically engages with existing typologies of international school teacher motivation, informing recruitment and retention strategies, professional development programs, and educational policies.