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The purpose of this paper is to explore how elite International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IBDP) schools in China function as a channel for international student mobility to leading universities around the world.

To achieve this, the authors conducted a mixed-methods study combining quantitative analysis of 1,622 students’ university destinations and qualitative analysis of interview data from five high performing and high tuition fee IBDP schools in China.

Results indicate that the IBDP in China can be conducive to a form of “elite international student mobility” for some students with 30 percent of participants attending one of the top 50 ranked universities globally. As an explanation, interview data points to the strong reputation of the program, the provision of structured opportunities for students to demonstrate “additional skills,” and the abundant resources of elite schools.

The authors provide a critical discussion about the implications of the IBDP’s function for “elite international student mobility” in connection with social contexts surrounding these international International Baccalaureate schools in China. In so doing, the discussion tackles two issues from a critical perspective: the role elite international schools in accelerating educational inequalities and challenges to authentic learning experience when elite schools play the “university admissions game.”

The International Baccalaureate (IB) programme centers on developing students' international mindedness. Central to this effort is the programme's “Learner Profile,” which details ten attributes that teachers seek to cultivate through classroom instruction. This article reports on the ways that middle grades and high school social studies and English teachers in Chicago Public Schools' (CPS) IB programmes are attempting to implement the Learner Profile as part of their classroom practice to support students' international mindedness.

The project was carried out as a two phase, sequential mixed-methods design. Phase I entailed a survey of IB teachers and programme coordinators across CPS to assess the incorporation of the Learner Profile into instruction. Phase II consisted of mixed-methods case studies of CPS IB programmes selected partially on Phase I data analysis.

We find that while teachers express high levels of familiarity with the Learner Profile attributes and confidence in incorporating them into practice, we find wide variation in the actual implementation. Taken as a whole, we find CPS programmes take divergent approaches to incorporating the Learner Profile based on differences in understanding of the attributes and its purposes as well as key organizational facets related to implementation.

Ultimately, we argue that the wide variation and lack of explicit incorporation of the Learner Profile into classrooms is related in large part to the broad, indistinct nature of “international mindedness” as a concept. The programme would benefit from creating more space for teacher and students to critique the concept, especially those working from non-Western traditions.

International mindedness (IM) is a core element of International Baccalaureate (IB) programs. Implementation of IM varies with the type of international school and where the IB school is situated. This article seeks to understand the tensions that three teachers experienced while teaching the IB Diploma Program history curriculum.

For this study, three IB teachers examined their experiences teaching the history curriculum. This article offers relevant research on the difficulties in implementing IM and the following tensions: (1) situating the IB curriculum; (2) with hegemonic privilege and (3) in high-stakes testing.

IM can be integrated into the history curriculum to make the history curriculum relevant for the global community. While each interviewee enjoys teaching in the IB program and believes the IB history curriculum offers opportunity for IM, they also feel the history curriculum would benefit from modification. Each interviewee's points of view bring a relevancy and an authenticity for why tensions exist when teaching IB diploma history.

There is a gap of research in how and to what extent teachers implement IM into the IB high school history curriculum. Further, teachers' views regarding the IB history curriculum and whether the history curriculum facilitates one's teaching IM is largely anecdotal. Thus, this study is unique in its offering three interviews by IB high school history teachers on IM and the tensions they feel when teaching about and attempting to implement IM.

The purpose of this paper is to explore a concept that has been less examined in empirical research on school organization, namely Network Learning Capacity (NLC). It is proposed that teachers’ professional networks enhance teachers’ individual NLC. This process leads to a formation of professional community (PC) and therefore affects the level of organizational learning (OL).

The quantitative study with multiple methods comprising social network analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling was conducted. Data were collected from a school implementing the International Baccalaureate (IB) programs in Taiwan.

Findings suggest that certain network positions were crucial in forming NLC on instruction. In addition, reflective dialogue, shaped by NLC, is the key component in establishing learning in this case school.

As the first of its kind in an educational context, the study highlights the linkages between network position and the development of professional learning community, which is mediated through NLC. This study contributes to illuminating the process of how PC practices and OL can be promoted in schools.

As Canadian universities increasingly serve diverse student populations, there is a need to understand the experiences of racialized students, including their experiences of bias and perception of the quality of postsecondary education. We utilize qualitative interviews with 38 ‘Asian-Canadian’ undergraduate students at a Canadian university as a case study to explore challenges to identity expression, strategies to earn admission, and campus resources. The findings reveal that students’ perceive stereotyping. They point to their families as preparing them for university admission as well as describing extracurricular endeavours and international baccalaureate education as helping them meet admission requirements. Study participants described challenges in university, including accessing some services. The findings are limited in the sense of not being able to distinguish whether the concerns related to access to resources was unique to these students or the broader student population. More research is needed on the experience of racialized students in Canadian postsecondary institutions.

Using the example of an amalgamated secondary school qualification (International Baccalaureate Career-related Programme – IBCP), in which both vocational education and training (VET) and academic subjects are taught, the paper aims to discuss the use of skills and knowledge gained during the IBCP for post-secondary school activities.

The paper uses mixed method data based on a survey of 57 IBCP graduates and qualitative interviews with 20 IBCP graduates. Findings relate to the role of the IBCP in the careers decision-making process, the skills and competences students gained during their IBCP and its transferability to their current activity.

After their IBCP, more than half of all observed students had entered higher education. Whilst a few students did not engage actively in the career decision-making process, some were pro-active and used different sources to gain information. However, a large group of students used their time during the IBCP to test various occupational ideas and, thus, used their VET to further the careers decision-making process. Most students reported that they could transfer the skills and competencies they had gained during their secondary school to their current activity.

The paper calls for a renunciation of the ambivalent signals an amalgamated secondary school degree can provide. IBCP students signal both an increased productivity because of an increased level of vocational skills and a lower level of academic achievement. These signals, however, allow students to enter a highly diverse higher education system, especially in vocational courses.

With a storytelling tone, this chapter narrates different examples of service-learning programs at The American School of Barcelona. The opportunities for international schools to develop experiential/learning programs through partnerships with a variety of institutions from the local community such as hospitals, multinational corporations, local and international NGOs, business schools, and regional or national governments are described. Establishing these partnerships not only provides students with valuable opportunities for experiential learning and service-learning, but it also has a very positive impact on partner institutions and their constituents, enhancing the school’s image in the community. Processes, as well as problems and solutions, that arise when developing service-learning programs are examined. By reading this chapter, it is hoped that readers will be inspired and, if they are practitioners of service-learning, will be able to replicate some of these programs in their own contexts. The reader will be able to see the positive benefits both for those who are serving and those who are served.

This case study illustrates how one social studies teacher used the International Baccalaureate (IB) Middle Years Programme (MYP)' s framework and philosophy to teach for global citizenship. The research question that framed this study was: How is an IB MYP Individuals and Societies (I&S) teacher enacting their perceptions and understanding of global citizenship education? Findings illustrate that this teacher enacted a proactive pedagogy, using her own personal perceptions and what IB MYP offered her through their affective and cognitive frameworks to apply her conceptions of global citizenship education.

The data for this single case study came from teacher semi-structured interviews (Rubin and Rubin, 2012), observations, field notes (Merriam and Tisdell, 2016) and teacher created documents. The goal for the teacher created documents was to provide detail, depth and evidence to support or contrast with what was found in the interviews and observations. Simultaneous, in vivo, and values coding were used to analyze the data and to get an overall picture of what the participant said, believed and practiced. Theories surrounding global citizenship education provided the lens for the study.

The findings are organized according to (1) the way this teacher's developed constructions of global citizenship and global citizenship education and IB led her to use the IB philosophy and framework to shape her beliefs and practices and (2) the way she embraced the tensions and possibilities inherent in her teaching for global citizenship in an IB MYP classroom to teach a proactive form of global citizenship education.

This research provides insight into the curriculum framework of IB MYP and the curriculum and instruction decisions of an I&S teacher. For the global citizenship education field, this study provides an example of how global citizenship can be incorporated into a social studies classroom.

For social studies education, this study uncovered the possibilities present in the curriculum when a teacher is given the space to make their own instructional decisions. This study also gives guidance on how international curriculum frameworks can be utilized for global citizenship education. Finally, this study illustrates teachers must fully subscribe to IB and the MYP as a means of teaching for global citizenship for it to be beneficial.

This study has value because it highlights how a social studies teacher successfully uses an international curriculum framework to teach for global citizenship. Few studies have shown examples of teachers, especially IB MYP teachers, who are committed to teaching for global citizenship and use the tools they are given to center student choice and connect the content to their students' lives. Teachers and researchers will be able to view the pedagogical possibilities inherent in this teacher's global citizenship methods.