Abstract
The research presented here shows the reflections of some International Baccalaureate (IB) Middle Years Programme (MYP) and Diploma Programme students of a bilingual school on the attributes of the IB Learner Profile and the extent to which these can contribute to students being internationally minded. I approach the research after reviewing the concept of the self and using pragmatic methodology. The research consisted of a questionnaire and semi-structured interview aimed at eliciting from the students their opinion about the extent to which they had equal command of the different attributes and if they had differing abilities, if they were seeking to improve their command of the attribute(s) and who they thought could help them do so. I was also interested in knowing if the students believed that the attributes of the IB learner profile helped them to be internationally minded, as suggested by the IB.
The results suggest that most of the students believe that they have differing degrees of command of the attributes, and that it is necessary for them to develop the ones in which they feel less proficient. They tend to believe that the attributes are developed partly at school, but also by their parents, themselves and others. They tend to believe that they are similar in terms of character to students who study at schools that do not offer the IB, but academically they are somewhat different. That said, they also tend to believe that the attributes of the IB learner profile help them to be internationally minded, particularly the ‘open-minded’ and ‘communicator’ attributes, which coincides with the theoretical position of Castro et al. (2013) and Singh and Qi (2013). While the school appears to play a significant part in developing the attributes, students seem to believe that they themselves, and parents, also have a key role to play.