Abstract
Purpose:
this study offers a rare insight into senior leadership in International Baccalaureate (IB) international schools. The IB international school profits from the perceived quality and consistency of the IB brand; international schools, however, suffer from an endemic culture of change and reinterpretation. The IB learner profile (IBLP) offers scope for consistency and an overarching ethos, and research finds that ‘buy-in’ to the IBLP and modelling of it in all aspects of school life are essential in achieving this. It emerges that buy-in to the IBLP in directors is split between the personal and the operational.
Research method:
This interpretive study explores IB directors in multiphase research over two years employing an aspect of critical phenomenology through the lens of the IBLP and Global Citizenship Education (GCE).
Findings:
Only one in six directors uses the IBLP in leadership. Generally, directors attribute the IBLP a junior status. Analysis through Bourdieu finds IB directors have higher loyalty to (loosely defined) GCE through their Christian values. A foregrounding of individual values over the secular IBLP places IB directors as primary catalysts for the change culture unravelling the consistency of the IB international school, confirming the value of the IBLP in leadership.
Keywords
Introduction
Through original research into international educational leadership, this article explores the relationship between the International Baccalaureate learner profile (IBLP) and directors in the IB international schools’ context. This presents a rare addition to the limited empirical work on IB senior school leadership.
It has been said that the educational leaders of the future must arm themselves with accurate knowledge of globalisation in order to be effective (and necessary) in the 21st century. Here is Bottery on the expansion of private sector businesses into the state sector. When this happens, private sector values – primarily those of efficiency, effectiveness and economy – usually become the criteria of success, and the other values like care and trust and equity increasingly become second order. This realignment of public sector values provides a direct challenge to the values of many public sector educators. (Bottery, 2006: 7)
The International Baccalaureate
IB schools convey a set of values through the IBLP. The IB states that it promotes international mindedness:
International-mindedness isn’t a separate course or lesson. It’s everything. It’s how you teach maths, English, economics. Students will tell you the IB teaches you to think differently. (International Baccalaureate Organization, 2012: 1)
Most centrally, the IB calls the IBLP ‘The IB mission statement in action’ (International Baccalaureate Organization, 2018: 1) and considers the IBLP as a guide for leadership in its Learner Profile Booklet (International Baccalaureate Organization, 2006). This debate is compelling given the backdrop of globalisation (Bunnell, 2010; Resnik, 2012), where Robinson (2004) maintains that the former capitalist system (generally regional) has evolved through globalisation into a transnational capitalist system. Corporate ‘canting pieties’ (Lanchester, 2017) may come to mind with the elevation of the IBLP to a generic employee model. For some, this is an affirmation of self-serving ‘corporation-speak’.
In line with its ‘internationalist’ or global minded orientation, Resnik (2012) argues convincingly that the IB diploma provides the perfect vehicle for the denationalisation of education and, further (2008; 2009), characterises the IB learner profile as a template for the production of the ideal worker in the global knowledge economy. Making reference to Basil Bernstein’s theory of pedagogic discourse via Bullock, including singular, regional and generic modes of pedagogised knowledge, Cambridge (2012: 237) argues that: ‘The IB Learner Profile (IB, 2006) constitutes a public statement of desired student outcomes arising from common values and vision about the nature and purpose of education expressed in cognitive, conative, affective and social dimensions’ (Bullock, 2011: 2). The IB learner profile was originally produced in 2006 for the Primary Years Programme (PYP), and is now being used as a generic model and ‘employee profile’ within the IB itself (International Baccalaureate Organization, 2006). Such a retroactive application in a generic manner remains controversial, and this paper goes some way to exploring this topic as it applies to senior leadership.
Literature review
Tensions in IB international schools exist between the traditional and progressive camps. Despite these tensions, Blandford and Shaw (2001) point to a paucity of documentary evidence in international schools’ leadership, and that, despite growth in the IB area, is very thin (Lee et al., 2012) and termed a ‘dearth of material’ (Hayden M, 2006: 117). In terms of leadership training, the IB offers a leadership workshop series (International Baccalaureate Organization, 2018b): with six workshop foci ranging from 'understanding leadership' to 'Cultivating learning focused IB world schools'. Most international school umbrella organisations – such as the Council of International Schools (CIS), or the European Council of International Schools (ECIS) to mention but a couple – offer leadership training and courses geared specifically for the international schools’ context. Kudos appears to be attached to post-graduate courses and degrees specialising in leadership or, more specifically, internationalism, education, leadership and some combination of these. Masters programmes in international education/leadership are in vogue, and gaining in popularity.
Ethos and ‘buy-in’
It has been argued that leading an international school requires an all-encompassing approach and the development of a particular ethos to infuse the whole school, and its stakeholders (Hill D, 2006; Matthews and Sidhu, 2005). Indeed, the IB offers just that, with its IB mission statement and, in the affective domain, the IBLP. Despite this, Bryant (2015) found international IB teacher managers felt support in leading and developing people was lacking. Unsurprisingly, others highlight how important it is for school leadership to support the IB philosophy if they are to then successfully implement IB programmes: Researchers have found that strong leadership from both the principals and the IB program coordinators in terms of their belief in and support of IB philosophy and their active promotion of IB programs to the public has been found to be crucial, (Hall et al., 2009; Hallinger et al., 2010; Riesbeck, 2008). Focusing in particular on fostering international mindedness, Hayden and Thompson (1996) found that the exemplary role of teachers and the management team’s buy-in of IB philosophy are critical (Van Vooren et al., 2013: 11).
Indeed, Stevenson et al. (2014) find that a leader in an IB school must actively promote the IB philosophy. Research on the PYP finds that leadership enthusiasm towards, and experience of, the IB continuum central to the success of the programme in day-to-day teaching and learning (Day et al., 2016). Yet further confirmation of the importance of leadership’s role in actively supporting the IBLP is given in Rizvi et al. (2014), which confirmed other report findings (Stevenson et al., 2014) that the IBLP is not clearly understood by all stakeholders. Rizvi et al. find that the IBLP is not particularly present at all in the IB diploma programme (IBDP). Further evidence that the IB international school could profit from an overarching ethos and increased buy-in is given in research that finds that the IB does not appear to function as a homogenous whole in its continuum form in IB schools in South-East Asia (Hallinger et al., 2010; Moosung et al., 2012): IB leaders devote significant resources to collaboration between programmes, which does not speak for overall cohesion or vertical continuum understanding. This means finding release time for teachers, and planning between schools’ sections.
The IBLP has been found to be vital in establishing the cohesion the IB continuums clearly need [emphasis added]. In confirmation of much other work here (Day et al., 2016; Hunter Lewis, 2015; Lee et al., 2012; Stevenson et al., 2014; Tooher-Hancock, 2014; Walker et al., 2014 ), Walker et al. find that the ‘LP [learner profile] plays a crucial role in shaping a cohesive school culture through its explicit use in teacher recruitment, student selection and classroom discourse’ (Walker et al., 2014: 66).
More recent research in the European context on the learner attribute of ‘open-mindedness’ (Stevenson et al., 2014) found that flexibility in the approach to the IBLP was central to participants’ view of its efficacy. This produced a paradoxical situation as it was also found that the systematic implementation of the IBLP was central in promoting a cohesive school culture. In terms of leadership, it was found that open-mindedness was important as an attribute and value supporting the IB’s own IBLP booklet (International Baccalaureate Organization, 2006). The study findings indicate that it is necessary to ensure that the learner profile is systematically built into the professional dialogues that take place in IB World Schools, such as daily ‘teacher talk’, whether it be part of formal meetings or informal professional conversations. As such, professional dialogues about the learner profile must be encouraged. These discussions are much more likely to occur when the learner profile is embedded intentionally within the culture of the school (Stevenson et al., 2014: 6).
The importance of school and leadership buy-in to the IB and IBLP appears to be critical to the successful running of an IB school. The findings in this paper on leadership focus meaningfully in this area, as explored in the analyses and Conclusions below.
IB capital
Other research focuses on the IB learner profile attributes of caring and open-minded, knowledgeable, inquirers (Walker et al., 2014) picking up on tensions for leadership, as discussed with regard to the globalist and internationalist, or the equitable and market place (Cambridge, 2003; Gardner-McTaggart, 2014). Gardner-McTaggart (2014) considers the growing popularity of the IB, particularly in the global South, not for reasons of equity, or global citizenship, but rather in pursuit of relative advantage: a new private school for the global elite. Indeed, on the Korean peninsula Song states ‘…English medium international schools are elite class reproducing institutions. The role of English is one of the major imperatives of global capitalism…’ (Song, 2013: 136).
Challenges of transition
English state school heads stay in position for an average of 9 or 10 years (Halpin and Owen, 2004); compare this with 2.4 years (Hawley, 1994; Hawley, 1995) or 3.7 years (Benson, 2011) for an international school.
Walker et al.’s (2014) view of two challenges facing IB leaders are external and organisational: ‘(1) achieving coherence and consistency across the three IB programmes; (2) managing the complexity of the formal organisation; (3) recruitment, selection, and deployment of staff; (4) ongoing professional development of teachers and (5) managing parental expectations’ (Moosung et al., 2012: 305).
Hayden and Thompson (2000) state that the continual change in staff, students, parents and board produce an effect of constantly redefining the school, and that the board in particular, staffed as it is with parents, will influence planning and staffing in a not always productive manner, this is echoed by Blandford and Shaw (2001). Benson’s (2011) data (with regard to a micro-managing board) suggest that chief administrators may not feel as though they have the freedom to pursue their own goals and strategy without interference.
If the IB international school is to offer its constituents the IB experience, then it follows that modelling, and implementation of the IBLP, can join the dots between disparate schools and leadership personalities, offering a truly stable and homogenous product. This would allow leadership to pick up where the last leader left off, rather than redefining each new school with each new posting.
Despite the empirical evidence supporting the implementation of the IBLP in leadership, it remains unclear why the IBLP appears to be an elusive facet of leadership in IB schools. This paper provides significant insight here.
Methodology
This study aimed to explore most senior leadership in IB schools, especially in what values are behind the ‘character of leadership’. Secondly, the study sought to investigate leadership approaches through the lens of the IB learner profile and Global Citizenship Education (GCE). It asked whether IB international schools’ directors operationalise the IBLP in their work.
The aims led to an interpretivist approach to research. The paucity in previous research, especially in multiphase contact, demanded a longer period of interaction with participants, for greater understanding. The character of leadership was to be explored as an individual phenomenon. Individual perception was considered a valuable aspect of the study in terms of what leaders valued, and how they presented themselves (Smith et al., 2009). It was important to listen to participants, not other involved parties, as is common in much multi-participant research in this field. Participants knew they were the only research subject in their school: with this focus upon the participants’ lifeworld there was no need for directors to anticipate other participants’ utterances.
The theoretical and empirical work from the established field of educational leadership was used in conjunction with that of Bourdieu (and others), and sought the phenomenon as subject and the critical as object (Bourdieu, 2007): towards a form of critical phenomenology.
A phenomenology seeks researchers who are living parts of the phenomena they research (Smith et al., 2009). The researcher was able to draw upon many years of experience as a middle manager and teacher in an IB international school. The UK and German-speaking Europe were identified, as the researcher is from the UK, with strong German-speaking associations. Schools (directors) were targeted if they offered a minimum of one pre-16 IB continuum: Primary Years Programme (PYP), Middle Years Programme (MYP) and offered the IB Diploma (IBDP).
Eleven directors were solicited via email. Seven agreed to take part. Six participants were based in Austria, Germany and Switzerland, and one pilot participant was based in the UK. Of the eleven solicited, all were white, Anglo-Europeans. Three were female and eight were male. Only one was a non-native English speaker from Central Europe. Of the six participants who formed the actual sample, two were female and four male. One male and one female were culturally US, three males and one female were culturally UK. They were given pseudonyms for anonymity: Alfred, Barry, Charles, Dorothy, Elvin and Fiona. Six schools (including the pilot) offered all three IB continuums. One school (Elvin) offered the PYP and the IB Diploma with an in-house middle school programme.
Alfred was the director of a large and very well established school in a capital city with substantial grounds and facilities, and a very international mix of students. He was in his fifth year of office. Barry led a smaller school in a many-storied former state school building, with fewer resources and with a much higher proportion of local German speaking students. He was in his sixth year of office, and has since moved on. Charles led a school with an expansive green and distributed campus just outside a large regional capital, with a healthy international mix of students. He was in his fifth year of office, and has since moved on. Dorothy led a school in prestigious facilities, in leafy grounds, with a good international mix just outside a regional capital, and was in her first year of office. Elvin led a school located on several campuses in predominantly rural locations outside of a major city and was in his third year of office. Fiona led a school at a centralised purpose-built location with good facilities and a good international mix of students outside a major city, and was two and a half years into her contract.
Methods
Participants were brought into a case study due to their ability to ‘…recognise other similar cases, phenomena and situations’ (Robson, 2002: 183); in this case a collective case study to ‘give insight’ and ‘…learn more about a population or condition’ (Punch, 1998: 152). The pilot was a valuable addition to the process, clarifying the need for face-to-face contact, contrary to a belief in web-based interpretivist research in the field of online ethnography (Hine, 2000; Kozinets, 2006; Miller and Slater, 2001). Trust-building was achieved over time through multiphase contact.
Data set one consisted of emailed pre-interview data collection. Participants were asked open-ended questions on their personal and operational views of both the IBLP and GCE. This provided orientation for participants on their outlook and values, and this was useful in analysis in comparison with data from other sets. Additionally, this acted as a stimulus for participant reflection prior to data set three.
Data set two was in the form of participant observation, where the researcher was a part of the process (not an external observer), and sat at the table in meetings, walked with the participant, was introduced to people, etc. This helped achieve a ‘fusion of horizons’ (Gadamer, 2004), so that ‘…the observer and the observed fuse their different versions of the word’: observing routine aspects of leaders’ work being performed, everyday management of personnel in meetings, and how success and failure were defined by the participants (Scott, 2012: 116).
Unstructured interviews (Coleman, 2012; Smith et al., 2009), made up data set three. This method is much valued for an inductive approach, where ‘…interaction [is] to be defined even more by the participant’ (Smith et al., 2009: 70), and allowed the participant the freedom to talk about what they found important.
Contact continued over a period of two years, and participants were involved in both review of transcripts from data set three, and their own findings chapters, allowing their voice to come through as clearly as possible prior to analysis.
Data analysis
Data sets one and two underwent reduction through coding and memoing (Cohen and Manion, 2007; Miles and Huberman, 1994; Punch, 1998). The large amounts of rich data underwent considerable condensation into analytical thematic units (Miles and Huberman, 1994); indeed, thematic frameworks. These basic and organisational themes were presented in findings and later described and explored as global themes in analysis (Attride-Sterling, 2001: 391). Data was triangulated as ‘…essentially a means of cross checking data to establish its validity’ (Bush, 2012: 85). Theoretical triangulation drew upon the scholarly work in the established field of educational leadership, and (mainly) the sociological work of Bourdieu.
Findings overview
The details of the findings are treated directly in the following section. In terms of leadership education, participants stressed the importance of postgraduate university qualifications (Masters and Doctorate) as being influential in their leadership: undergraduate degrees were not viewed as relevant here: see Table 1 for an overview of experience, training and current school curriculum. None mentioned any of the leadership courses offered by umbrella organisations such as the IB or CIS.
Education, experience, current school and background at a glance.
The findings from data set one on the IBLP and GCE in the societal and organisational context are modelled in Figure 1, in ‘radar view’ as interpreted from open-ended written answers. These show the uptake of the IBLP and GCE in the participants’ professional and personal contexts: the wider the radar coverage, the more complete the uptake. (An extract of the collated and reduced data display is given in Table 2.) In Figure 1, the smallest coverage indicates a negligible professional uptake of the IBLP. In the main, the values of the IBLP resonated fairly well; participants explain the IBLP as not being particularly useful in leadership, and seldom used either explicitly or even implicitly to guide decision making or interaction. Dorothy provides the exception. Conversely, GCE was expressed by all as being central to the role of leadership in this context, influencing decisions and interactions in every way possible.
Radar view of IBLP and GCE by participant.
IBLP views condensed by participants [extract].
Thematic analysis
What does the IBLP mean to leaders?
Data set one was most illuminative in setting out how leaders felt about the IBLP. As Table 2 shows, all leaders can clearly relate to the IBLP at a fundamental level. Only Dorothy claims to use the IBLP in decision making in the school. Charles claims to draw on it at times, and Barry goes with ‘not often’. The rest give a concise ‘no’ to the IBLP in leadership. Further, Alfred, Barry, Charles and Elvin see the IBLP as being useful as a way of talking to constituents (not for leadership); indeed, Fiona is unequivocal that it is not useful in leadership. Dorothy is the exception, seeing it as being of use in all areas of running a school.
The IBLP as a leadership tool
Explicit implicit
Like Barry and Fiona, Alfred’s use of the IBLP, is not explicit. Unlike Barry, (who does not profess a strong connection to the IBLP) Alfred sees (and saw) certain aspects of the IBLP as touch points, even before he had ever heard of the IB. This is like Fiona, who terms the IBLP a ‘foundational pillar’.
Barry does not use the IBLP explicitly; he makes it visible all around school instead. Charles believes that the IBLP comes through in the culture of the school, rather than as an explicit feature of his school. In contrast, Dorothy uses the IBLP as an explicit and implicit tool to guide her leadership and appears to ‘systematically build it into dialogues’. Elvin is a little contradictory, as he states first that he does not feel quite comfortable using the IBLP in leadership conversations; subsequently, he finds the IBLP is useful and used all the time in ‘teacher mentoring, and coaching…’. It follows that Elvin sees the scope of the IBLP as being didactic in nature, rather than an operational feature. This supports a notion of the IBLP as a normative tool, not fitting the rigid discourse of operational leadership of the school. Fiona, like most except Dorothy, is clear that the IBLP is used neither explicitly nor implicitly in her approach to leadership; although she contradicts herself later by stating that the IBLP provides a framework for her management team.
Rhetoric and reality
Like Charles, Alfred mentions feeling a definite frustration with the conflict between rhetoric and reality, and how the lived aspect of the IBLP is not a given in the school environment as he would hope or expect. This is similar to Fiona, who views the IBLP as too narrow, too limiting for the international context, while mentioning that some schools actually add to it. Alfred hopes for a lived IBLP reality but, like Barry, notes teachers’ limitations. Charles mentions how the concept of balance is thwarted by the IB itself; i.e. group six subjects (the arts) invariably lose out when a student chooses two subjects from another group. Balance is focal, yet undermined by the IB system, as the focus on instrumental advantage is again in direct opposition to the IBLP ‘…as it is not caring’. Dorothy talks of how the IB fails to attract some schools because it does not represent an ‘off-the-shelf’ curriculum and requires more planning and more effort from the school, an issue also raised by Barry, who saw this as a negative aspect of the system. However, Dorothy also outlines how the IBLP was very helpful for her in building trust and creating a common language to do this. Dorothy mentions operational challenges in dealing with the IB, which has already been identified as one of the two main pressures facing IB educational leaders (Walker et al., 2014), and how this has improved as the IB has been restructured. Fiona clearly picks up on the challenge between the normative and rigid discourse in the IB (she terms it idealist and pragmatic in an echo of Bates (2011)), and points out how this is a point of tension for many individuals. Less critically, and more instrumentally, Elvin uses the rhetoric of the IB to support his own reality. Bear in mind that this is the participant who considers the US state school system of his origin to be ‘broken’, and values the international school sector for the change he can affect. He points out how the IBLP supports his move away from qualification-based merit (steps in pay-scale), towards what he views as a model of growth over evaluation. In doing so, Elvin cleanly uses the normative model of the IBLP to insert a market-oriented (rigid) element into the fabric of the school. He does this despite the fact that he himself holds a doctorate: and he profits from this system. While this appears to display cognitive dissonance, it also supports the idea of an ‘alienation from self’ (Marx, 2009), where the market place can do nothing but commodify things (Bourdieu, 2003), including the professional practice of a highly-educated educationalist. This could be referred to as a ‘colonisation of practice’ (Gunter, 2013), where business practices colonise the educational sector: the rigid agenda is cloaked by the normative discourse (Hartley, 2016). This also appears to confirm the concern in educational leadership circles over a rejection of intellectualism in the school context (Gunter, 2001). When Elvin says ‘do you want to emphasise evaluation? Or do you want to emphasise growth?’, it is unclear as to whether personal or financial growth is the focus of such change. This market view is clearly apparent in Fiona, who sees the IB as a branded product, and explains (with the example of the marketing of Coca-Cola) how her job is to see that the product (education) has to be the best fit for the customer (parent/student). Further, Fiona is critical of the IB having gone for expansion and market share, especially in the Global South. In an echo of Charles, above, she believes that the IB ‘is exploiting a market rather than focusing on its core educational values’. These are valuable observations, and this is a problematic discussion that goes beyond the scope of this article; the directors are all white, Anglo, middle class, yet work in a system that promises internationalism. They lament the IB’s onus on market share over educational values, and so seem unwilling to embrace the IB experience in the Global South. This is unconscious distinction (Bourdieu, 1984) at work in the mind of the leader.
IBLP in action
Charles does not see the need for the IBLP in leadership, as ‘the conversation’ is ‘pragmatic and ethical’. Charles only sees the value of explicit use in a bullying situation, but still this would not signal a definite need to use the attributes. However, Charles recognises that use of the IBLP in an established school is not so explicit as it is already part of the school culture: apparently only on a curricular level. Conversely, Dorothy stresses the attribute of Open Minded in her leadership practice with both teachers and union, and makes the point of exploring her leadership style in front of the interviewer and being surprised at her own self-assessment. Unlike Dorothy, Elvin views the IBLP as a point of reference rather than a guiding norm. He sees balance as important, and refers to a balanced lifestyle, sport and connection as a balance to his supposed introverted personality. Elvin ponders his own leadership style, suggesting that he may not be quite so reflective of his own practice. Both Dorothy and Elvin are in this way similar, presenting themselves as momentarily open for reflection (open-minded), and without too much premeditation of their own leadership approach. Fiona highlights learning and caring as central. She sees no apparent leadership influence from the IBLP, but concedes that it may have some implicit inference. Her management team uses it as a schematic and this may be one such example.
With the notable exception of Dorothy, this mixed approach towards using the IBLP as a leadership tool runs counter to research findings on the importance of such reinforcement at leadership level (Day et al., 2016; Stevenson et al., 2014; Walker et al., 2014), and again supports the findings of the paradoxical nature of the IBLP as being up to interpretation, despite a clear IB definition and understanding of the terms (Stevenson et al., 2014).
Junior function
Leadership appears to take a selective view of the IBLP and its implementation, far from an overarching ethos (Hill I, 2006; Matthews and Sidhu, 2005). It is of note that the leaders here tend to see more value in the IBLP in the lower years of school (in an instructional context) and, correspondingly, in the lower echelons of school teaching/leadership. The more senior the teacher/leader becomes, the less is the perceived need for an engagement with the IBLP. This causal connection between increasing seniority and lessening engagement with the IBLP is reflected in the student body and the continuum of the IB itself. Rizvi et al. (2014) find very little student engagement with the IBLP in the most senior post-16 programme: the IB Diploma. Others (Day et al., 2016; Stevenson et al., 2014) find significant engagement in the more junior programmes (MYP and PYP, respectively). For Day et al. the connection is specifically related to leadership, where the PYP coordinator appears to ‘…show more characteristics of the IB learner profile than the Principal’ (Day et al., 2016: 32). The connection appears to belie an implicit understanding that the IBLP is most certainly not connected with the highest leadership positions, either as student leadership of senior peers in the Diploma, or as a tool used by senior school leadership. Dorothy, the exception, proves the rule.
The above uncovers yet one more paradox of the IB: the mission statement in action is a set of values and attributes that is relegated to a junior orientation and not valued as an overarching and cohesive set of values by which to navigate the adult world and/or the global market place. More, it appears that directors do not reify the IBLP in a cultural interpersonal sense. For most, the IBLP is fortunately analogous to the values of participants, and therefore merged with their Anglo-Christian worldview. In this analysis, the IBLP is at best a tool for explaining the IB and, not particularly foregrounded in senior professional practice. This finding is once more iterative (Day et al., 2016; Hunter Lewis, 2015; Lee et al., 2012; Stevenson et al., 2014; Tooher-Hancock, 2014; Walker et al., 2014) of the stark necessity for IB leadership to engage clearly and meaningfully with the IBLP in order to realistically approach the lofty ideals of the IB mission statement.
Overall, there is little mention of the IBLP in data sets one and three, despite data set two (observational notes) showing that all schools visually displayed the IBLP, mostly in the primary schools. This appears to confirm its position as a primary school resource, and showing some resistance to the IBLP as an employee template.
Conclusions and implications
GCE versus the IBLP
All participants saw global mindedness/global citizenship as the most important aspect of their leadership practice. The IBLP is an IB product for use in the affective domain. It is applied to facilitate much of what is associated with GCE in line with the IB mission statement in teaching/learning/leadership (International Baccalaureate Organization, 2006). However, the participants’ data showed a clear separation of the IB mission statement in action (the IBLP) and GCE, and this research found a social and organisational separation of the two terms. This transpired as a notional (social) acceptance of the IBLP, but a rejection of its (operational) efficacy – the exception was Dorothy. Conversely, GCE found universal operational and social acceptance.
Charles’ case was noteworthy as the only non-religious member of the six participants; like the rest, he placed operational stress on GCE yet, unlike the others, used IBLP attributes to explain this, confirming the role assigned the IBLP by this sample of directors in explaining concepts. More tellingly, all other participants stressed the importance of (Christian) religious schooling and experience in becoming an international school’s leader.
With GCE’s long association with religion (Boles, 2011; Prolman, 2015; United Methodist Women, 2016), and the Christian moral imperative, GCE is may be accepted by these participants into the sacred. ‘The sacred…is that which is set apart, that which is separated…What characterises it, is that it cannot, without losing its nature, be mixed with the profane’ (Durkheim, 1974: 70). In terms of defining global mindedness as the central facet of their leadership outlook, the sacred GCE is more immediate as it follows a higher loyalty. Conversely, the IBLP remains organisational and profane. Put bluntly, participants operationalise and promote the former because of who they are (Anglo-Christians), not because of the IB franchise. This simple caveat puts paid to the efficacy of globalising values, and their tendency to act as currency (Bourdieu, 2003), serving the sell (getting the job in the school), but not necessarily the product (the IB). As is clear here, the IBLP is not operationalised in leadership, and there can be no talk of an ‘IB leadership experience’ (the exception is Dorothy), only of a global minded Anglo-Christian one. It is unclear as to what difference there is (in the main) between senior leadership in an IB international school and any other international school, save for the fact that, in the former, the IBLP is used to explain broader concepts.
IB leadership
This study takes IB senior leadership as its focus and explores senior IB leadership as the phenomenon. The senior leader sets the tone for the school (implementation of the IB), and it is therefore important to know how these individuals orient towards, and interpret, the IB.
Stevenson et al.’s (2014) European study found a central need for a systematic implementation of the IBLP in promoting a cohesive school culture, echoing previous research in the non-European context (Bryant, 2015). With such contextual backgrounding, it is clear that the IBLP represents the quintessential IB student – this is the aim/outcome of an IB education. It is questionable how IB leaders can create this if they do not flag it as important and model it. As this research so clearly shows, it is unclear how IB leaders meet the aims of the IBLP.
The participants all agree that the IBLP is important to school culture but, with the exception of Dorothy, they do not see this as part of the leadership culture of an IB school. Moreover, values are key to all IB leaders, just as the values of the IBLP are central to the IB itself. Here, both the leaders and the IB position themselves in line with theorists who posit that elements of culture and values allow organisations to respond to the uncertainties of a globalising world, in the absence of definite structures (O’Neele, 1994). Values may also confer uniqueness (Beare and Millikan, 1989): in the case of the IB, its particular franchise flavour; in the case of directors, their societal-organisational orientation. In both cases, these values represent Western views, or what has been referred to as cultural globalisation, an uncritical adaptation of Western norms (Bottery, 2004). Within this Anglo-Western model, values vary from those clearly rooted in a religious firmament (e.g. Barry and Fiona), to those perfectly aligned with the IBLP (Dorothy and, to some extent, Alfred).
The IBLP is valued in explaining the IB, not as an overarching ethos to infuse the whole school (Hill I, 2006; Matthews and Sidhu, 2005) and to be modelled by senior leadership. Dorothy (as the only exception) confirms Stevenson et al. in that she ‘…ensures that the IBLP is systematically built in to professional dialogues’ (Stevenson et al., 2014: 6); all of the others do not. It is contextually significant that these IB directors can and do use the IBLP as part of their affective professional skill-set; for the most part, however, this is not an ethos. This is helpful in understanding the lack of involvement of the IBLP in leadership. The IBLP is a set of organisational values in line with an organisational culture, rather than a set of societal values, as expressed in a social culture, and this is explored below.
Values
Values emerged as being central to participants’ perception of leadership. Values are easily associated with the IBLP, linked to a cultural model of management, and to moral leadership.
Bush highlights that culture in leadership ‘may be both operational and normative’ (Bush, 2011: 171). Gerritz and Bartlett (2007) found the values-based mission outcomes to drive school performance in IB international schools. Indeed, ‘The stress on the intangible world of values and attitudes is a useful counter to [these] bureaucratic assumptions and helps to produce a more balanced portrait of educational institutions’ (Bush, 2011: 166).
Participants capitalise on the intangible as they generate powerful capital by linking their personal values with normative organisational values. Bourdieu (2003) points out how such a strategy is of only limited value in regulated contexts yet, conversely, particularly powerful in deregulated and distended systems: in this case IB international schools. It is a power narrative offering the consistency (Cialdini, 2007) and balance (Bush, 2011) required. For some, this instrumental exploitation of values (which orient towards the shifting needs of the various schools) represents a decline and commodification of values in the face of globalisation (Bourdieu, 2003; Habermas, 1970) and is what Bush (2011) finds in leadership.
In the operational, the participants appear to follow a cultural model; the IBLP as orientation, but not of instrumental use in school leadership. A cultural model is ‘…the way of life of a given collectivity (or organisation), particularly as reflected in shared values, norms, symbols and traditions’ (Mitchell and Willover, 1992: 6). However, values need to be clear, and embedded in the functioning of the school. As Bush points out, these values are often not made explicit (Bush, 2011: 174) and, equally, a systematic usage of the IBLP in staff communications is considered central to a successful IB school (Day et al., 2016; Morfea, 2013; Stevenson et al., 2014). With the vagaries and tensions inherent in this school sector the IBLP is explicit and provides a clear focus for moral leadership in the globalising market place. Yet, as has been shown above, moral leadership (where it appears) in this sample stems from individualised Anglo-Christian values. Whilst similar, these are not truly international, and do not form a helpful overarching ethos. The participants here work counter to experience and empirical evidence. This phenomenon is illogical and puzzling. In answer, Walker and Dimmock relate how societal values are unchangeable, but the organisational values are changed by the leader. Normally the two can co-exist separately (Walker and Dimmock, 2002), for example: “At home my husband is served first, but at work we are all served equally”. However, by commodifying the societal in order to survive in the market, participants transform their organisational environment towards their societal values. In this way they change the school: and they change every school they work in. This change will orient towards participants’ societal values, and not towards the school/IB organisational: see Table 1.
International values are central to the successful orientation of the international school (Cambridge and Carthew, 2007), and other scholars find that international education may already reflect the best of East and West in at least two facets: organisational culture and values (Bunnell, 2009; Walker, 2010). Such theory on values may be in need of revision. These directors’ societal values reflect their white, English, Christian backgrounds. With no separation between societal values and operative values, and without a disengagement from the power narrative, there is no operationalisation of the IBLP in leadership.
Overview
IB international schools suffer from continual reinterpretation and change, which is a drain on resources and unhelpful for the continuity of the school, with obvious implications for teaching and learning. A central component of the IB itself is the IBLP, which offers a ready-made set of equitable organisational values for this globalised franchise. However, IB international school directors in this Western European sample generate substantial shared capital from their societal values. In this globalising context, these values are an esteemed commodity and increase their perceived marketability to their schools, and they establish themselves as powerful leaders, divining direction and vision. GCE fits a more sacred purpose for them than the IBLP, and is subsequently operationalised: the secular IBLP is not, which suggests a conundrum for the IB, and continues the crisis of transition in this context.
Barry shows little or no personal connection to the IBLP, whilst Alfred and Dorothy feel their connections to it are deep and clear. Charles, Elvin and Fiona generally feel a strong personal connection to the IBLP. However, only Dorothy operationalises the IBLP in the workplace, and orients herself around this as a leadership tool, modelling the IB mission statement in action (the IBLP) and infusing her school with the IB experience. All other directors view the IBLP as something of a junior matter, or a junior pedagogical tool. The only time they explicitly use any of the 10 learner attributes is when explaining how the school works to parents or students. They value it as a common language; not in leadership.
These directors exist in a rich and cosmopolitan UN-style environment, yet, paradoxically, they are all share the same English cultural heritage. Once more, the religious backgrounding goes some way to explain this. Participants do not appear to represent a cohesive phenomenon of ‘IB leadership’. Participants follow individual career paths, and they appear more as free market international school leaders, each a phenomenon in their own right. They do not operationalise the IBLP (except for Dorothy), hence it is unclear how they can be effective IB leaders. A challenge for the IB is that, only when societal and organisational values are aligned do directors operationalise the IBLP in leadership: as is the case with Dorothy alone.
Footnotes
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.
