Abstract
The rise and rise of international education has sparked much debate about its necessity, its definition, and how to properly address the needs of hugely diverse student bodies across the world. This collection of essays, edited by Daphne P. Hobson and Iveta Silova, is divided into 15 chapters and 2 parts in which various authors tackle a myriad of subjects affecting international education, re-framing and exploring it and its relationship with the world around it.
The authors’ introduction is followed by a chapter from James Cambridge. In ‘Global Citizenship Education as Pedagogic Discourse’, Cambridge looks at the notion of globalized and international education through the issues of privilege, social justice, the wealth gap, and the occident-centric origins of the international education philosophy. He delineates strong versus weak boundaries (‘weakening classification’) between subjects, and suggests how international learning can be taught either as a standalone subject or integrated into the whole curriculum. Building on the work of Basil Bernstein, Cambridge looks at the language and context of education, and how these are defined by specific changes in pedagogical approaches, for example, in the International Baccalaureate (IB) and in the United States, with ‘No Child Left Behind’.
The first part of this book, focusing on pedagogy, starts in earnest with the essay by Ian E. Sutherland, Darren Price, and David Harris: ‘Where Is Global Citizenship? How International Schools Are Fulfilling Their Mission’. The authors lead with the observation that there is a current shift toward international education due to globalization, immigration, and market diversification, the rationale being that it supposedly helps students to understand their role in an interconnected world and engage with it. The authors then consider how international schools add global ideals, but note how this is affected by curriculum, teacher bias, and school climate. They also investigate the importance of a global curriculum and explore the importance of teachers and school leadership in implementing this.
Jan M. Westrick looks at how international schools can be microcosms of globalization in ‘The Influence of Service-Learning on the Development of Intercultural Sensitivity: A Case of an International School in Hong Kong’. Privileged almost by default, the student bodies of these schools are often (ironically) set apart from the local population. Using Bennett’s Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity, Westrick tries to chart the impact of service learning in both a quantitative and a qualitative manner.
Further westward, Maria Aurora Correa Bernardo and Sherlyne Almonte-Acosta’s ‘A Closer Look at Internationalism in International Education in the Philippines: A Journey Towards Authenticity’ is a study that looks at internationalism as applied in three international schools in the Manila metro area of the Philippines. The country’s diverse background of European and American influence, with a strong Roman Catholic presence, heavily underlies the very different interpretations of internationalism within the sample schools. The chapter looks at how local teachers with a local education handle ‘internationally’ educating a diverse student body, navigating different cultures and attitudes in class. Also considered is the role of language and language proficiency in various interactions between staff and students and among the student body: the ‘bridge’ of English between Filipino and Korean students.
Nigel Bagnall contributes ‘A Member of That Team: International School Students and Their Need to Belong’, which discusses a 5-year study of four international schools in France, the United States, Vietnam, and Australia, looking at students’ identity and finding that students in such schools seldom think of themselves as global citizens. The study, which interviewed 40 teachers and 60 students aged 11–18 years, comes away with an interesting finding: while the perception is that being a so-called Third Culture Kid is fantastic, many of these children do have issues defining their identity and in understanding where they belong.
Following on the theme of experiencing life in an international school, Diane G. Gal and Judith E. King-Calnek’s ‘A Glimpse into the Making of Global Minds: The International School Experience at the United Nations International School’ looks at alumni who had graduated from the titular institution, seeking to determine how education in international mindedness was affected by real-world situations while also exploring the issue of identity crisis for Third Culture Kids. The chapter is based on a study titled ‘Focusing on the perspectives and lived experiences of recent graduates’ (57 of them). Data were gathered from online quizzing and document analysis of students who graduated between 1995 and 2008 in order to determine global-mindedness experiences, and the findings provide some interesting perspectives.
When referring to international education, it is impossible to ignore one of the major influencers in this arena. In ‘The International Baccalaureate and Its “Second Era” of Ambitious Rhetoric: Wider Access and Greater Impact’, Tristan Bunnell looks at the proliferation of the IB globally, offering some fascinating statistics and background, as well as insight into how it has affected international education. Focusing on the post-1999 era, when the IB began a steady expansion, Bunnell looks at the change in language within the IB’s language of discourse, and its shift from trying to sell itself as a worthwhile idea, into establishing itself as a global player seeking new potential markets.
The second part of this book starts off with two looks at models of international education in the Arab Gulf country of Kuwait. Roger J. Douglas writes about ‘American Curriculum in an Islamic Context: A Complex Adoption of Life Skills Education Program in Kuwait’. Beginning from the premise that economic globalization brings with it different values inherent to the products it offers, Douglas considers how predominantly Western values affect Islamic countries, by looking at the implementation of an American ‘Life Skills’ program in a Kuwaiti private school. A highly interesting read for anyone interested in the region, the chapter comes away finding that key issues stood in the way of implementation, including some that readers will expect, and others they will not.
In much the same vein, ‘Growing Globally-Minded Citizens in the Desert: A Comparative Curricula Analysis of Two Schools in Kuwait’ by Kelly Card and Rosalee van Staalduinen compares vision, pedagogy, and curriculum implementation in one bilingual and one IB school to the broader contexts of politics, religion, and social background. Covering similar ground to Douglas, these authors, nevertheless, approach their analysis using a different methodology based on Molnar’s strands of international orientation.
Zejun Zhou has a lot of criticism for international education in ‘A “Brand-New” Chinese Model of an International School in Shanghai: Patriotic Marketing and International Education Hegemony’, and his analysis of the Shanghai High School’s International Division pulls few punches, as he methodically examines this ambitiously marketed ‘alternative’ to Western-influenced international schools in China which, in his opinion, merely swaps some of the Western values for Chinese ones in order to appeal to local ideals and identities.
Staying with the theme of identity, ‘Global, European or Local Citizenship? The Discursive Politics of Citizenship Education in Central and Eastern Europe’ by William C. Brehm and O. Colin Webster is a dense and often-complicated look at how the Central and Eastern European Schools Association functions as a microcosm of the political shifts that have occurred in Europe over the past 60 years. The chapter includes lots of fascinating historical background about education and politics in post–World War II (WWII) Europe, as well as in-depth analyses of several schools, charting their move away from being ‘schools for expats’ to something entirely new.
In ‘Trans-Regional Regimes and Globalization in Education: Constructing the Neo-Caribbean Citizen’, Tavis D. Jules looks at the role of the Caribbean Community’s (CARICOM) united regional policies between 1990 and 2008 in maintaining a distinct regional identity and nurturing international mindedness, in the face of global hegemony. This chapter consists of a very detailed analysis of the rhetoric involved in the policies issued and reviewed over the time period, divided into three distinct phases, and of how they allowed for a convergence between the nations of the Caribbean region.
In ‘What Discursive Practices Can Reveal about “Being” Global: An Analysis of the Discourse of the International Baccalaureate Organization’, Anna M. Hahn analyses 32 years’ worth of IB literature to explore the intersection of language, politics, and power in the context of international education and its relationship with the world. Reviewing the IB Bulletin series between 1968 and 2000, Hahn carries out a critical discourse analysis of the literature and also devotes some time to considering the change in use of terms such as ‘global’ and ‘international education’. Of interest also is her analysis of the makeup of the IB’s Council of Foundation, a surprisingly diverse body which is, nevertheless, dominated by individuals from Switzerland, the United States, the United Kingdom, and France.
A conclusion is provided by Siegfried Ramler, an interesting figure whose backstory (born in pre-WWII Austria, lived in London during the Blitz, and worked as an interpreter during the Nuremberg trials) is almost as interesting as his eight-page treatise of the challenges facing the education of students in the 21st century. The concluding chapter moves away from research and instead suggests practical strategies for integrating such themes as diversity and its role in preventing conflict, instilling social responsibility, global literacy, anticipatory learning, ecological literacy, and study and service abroad. These paradigms, he believes, are needed to create a better, more compassionate, more stable future world.
Globalizing Minds is a worthwhile read for anyone interested in gaining a broad glimpse of international education in the modern world, including a wealth of information spanning a truly broad array of topics.