The IMaGE of an International School?

Shortlink: is.gd/taylorimage

This page hosts the materials for my breakout session during the Department of Education 50th Anniversary Conference: International Education and Globalisation.

The format was a twenty-minute introduction to my dissertation, the IMaGE of an International School, followed by twenty minutes for interaction. How can we visualise and exemplify the school-controlled factors that contribute to the development of international mindedness and global engagement (IMaGE) in our students?

Some key points: 

• All schools are, to some extent, international schools. Unless they really try not to be. But within the growing, changing field, there are many flavours of school. The idea was to try to capture this in a visual way.
• International mindedness is a complex issue that is hard to explain (especially across languages/cultures). Other more concrete phrases, such as intercultural (or global) competence might better show the outcomes or practices.
• We must not conflate qualities with goodness. Using the scales on the rubrics used in this project we are looking for degrees of  various qualities as a way to capture the IMaGE of the school, not measure it in terms of ranking.

Losing Faith

This represented years of thinking and work, and when I came up with the web chart and the rubrics idea, I was informed by my own reading & experience. THEN I learned about more qualitative, authentic approaches, such as the work of Veronica Boix Mansilla on Portraiture. I mentioned this in the presentation and in the time since often think about how I would adapt this to be more authentically global. Find out more about the Global Thinking Toolkit here, graphics by me here.

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Presentation Resources

• Presentation slides are online here.
• For the super-drafty pilot rubrics used in the dissertation (with minor edits), click here.
• The full dissertation is available online here

Try it out: School IMaGES

As a quick though experiment, what IMaGEs would you predict for the following types of schools?

• A large, established, diverse international school (such as IS Geneva)
• A national ‘plus’ school (local student body, mostly local teachers, IB curriculum)
• A school in a national setting with a large proportion of migrant children (e.g. refugees in a London state school, but using National Curriculum)
• A British International School vs a British International School: same type of school, same location overseas, same student demographics, contrasting ethos.

What is the IMaGE of your own school?

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Practical resources for schools:

• 

  UNESCO’s Intercultural Competences: Conceptual & Operational Framework (pdf)

• OECD’s Global Competency for an Inclusive World (pdf)
• OXFAM’s Global Citizenship resources (website)

Also of interest:

• Steelcase 360’s “Culture Code” issue that leans heavily on Hofstede’s work, but gives some great infographics and practical implications.
• The Lewis Model of Cultural Types is fascinating.

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It was a very rewarding experience – different from hosting sessions at the IBAP Conference, EdTech Team or in-house PD for sure. The audience at the University was diverse in its interests, from researchers and professors to teachers, school leaders and accreditation organisation representatives, and the opportunity to bridge research and practice was stimulating. I hope to be able to continue the discussions and perhaps take the research to a higher level.

References used in or relevant to the presentation

A full list of references can be found in the dissertation. 

• Bunnell, T., 2008. International education and the “second phase”: a framework for conceptualizing its nature and for the future assessment of its effectiveness. Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, 38(4), pp.415–426.
• Cambridge, J., 2003. Identifying the Globalist and Internationalist Missions of International Schools. International Schools Journal, 22(2), pp.54–58.
• Cambridge, J. & Carthew, C., 2015. Schools Self-Evaluating Their International Values: A Case Study. In Hayden, M., Levy, J. & Thompson, J. (6^th Edition, online). The SAGE Handbook of Research in International Education. pp. 283-288. London, UK: SAGE Publications Ltd.
• Cambridge, J. & Thompson, J., 2001. Internationalism, international-mindedness, multiculturalism and globalisation as concepts in defining international schools. Unpublished paper. 
• Fertig, M., 2007. International school accreditation: Between a rock and a hard place? Journal of Research in International Education, 6(3), pp.333–348.
• Fertig, M., 2015. Quality Assurance in National and International Schools: Accreditation, Authorization and Inspection. In Hayden, M., Levy, J. & Thompson, J. (7^th Edition). The SAGE Handbook of Research in International Education. pp. 447-457.
• Hayden, M., 2011. Transnational spaces of education: the growth of the international school sector. Globalisation, Societies and Education, 9(2), pp.211–224.
• Hayden, M., Levy, J. & Thompson, J. (Eds), 2015. The SAGE Handbook of Research in International Education. (7th Edition). London, UK: SAGE Publications Ltd.
• Hayden, M. & Thompson, J., 1995. International Schools and International Education: a relationship reviewed. Oxford Review of Education, 21(3), pp.327–345.
• Haywood, T., 2007. A simple typology of international-mindedness and its implications for education. In Hayden, M., Levy, J. & Thompson, J. (6th Edition, online). The SAGE Handbook of Research in International Education. pp. 79-89. London, UK: SAGE Publications Ltd.
• Hett, E.J., 1991. The development of an instrument to measure global-mindedness, San Diego, USA: University of San Diego Press.
• Hill, I., 2000. Internationally-minded schools. The International Schools Journal, 20(1), p.24.
• Hill, I., 2006. Student types, school types and their combined influence on the development of intercultural understanding. Journal of Research in International Education, 5(1), pp.5–33.
• Hill, I., 2015. The history and development of international-mindedness. In Hayden, M., Levy, J. & Thompson, J. (7th Edition, online). The SAGE Handbook of Research in International Education. pp. 20-34. London, UK: SAGE Publications Ltd.
• International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO), 2012a. What is international mindedness? [Online]. IB Answers. Available at:
• International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO), 2012b. What is global engagement? [Online]. IB Answers.
• International Schools Association (ISA), 2011. Internationalism in Schools – a Self-Study Guide, [Online] Available at: http://isaschools.org/portfolio-view/internationalism-in-schools-a-self-study-guide/.
• Lowe, J., 1998. International and comparative education. The International Schools Journal, 17(2), p.18.
• Marshall, H., 2007. The Global Education Terminology Debate: Exploring Some of the Issues. In Hayden, M., Levy, J. & Thompson, J. (6^th Edition, online). The SAGE Handbook of Research in International Education. pp. 108–121. United Kingdom: Routledge.
• Murphy, E., 2012. International School Accreditation: Who Needs It? In Hayden, M. & Thompson, J.   International Education, Principles and Practice [Online]. p.212-223. London: Kogan Page.
• Nikel, J. & Lowe, J., 2010. Talking of fabric: a multi‐dimensional model of quality in education. Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, 40(5), pp.589–605.
• Singh, M. & Qi, J., 2013. 21st century international mindedness: An exploratory study of its conceptualisation and assessment, University of Western Sydney.
• Shields, R., 2015. Measurement and Isomorphism in International Education. In Hayden, M., Levy, J. & Thompson, J., 2015. The SAGE Handbook of Research in International Education. (7th Edition). London, UK: SAGE Publications Ltd. pp.477-487.
• Skelton, M., 2007. International mindedness and the Brain: The Difficulties of” Becoming. The SAGE handbook of research in international education, pp.379–389.
• Skelton, M., 2013. International-mindedness: Martin Skelton examines definitions and issues. International School Magazine, 15(2), pp.13–14.
• Yamato, Y., 2003. Education in the market place: Hong Kong’s international schools and their modes of operation, Comparative Education Research Centre, University of Hong Kong.
• Yemini, M., 2012. Internationalization assessment in schools: Theoretical contributions and practical implications. Journal of Research in International Education, 11(2), pp.152–164.

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