Browsing by Subject "International Baccalaureate"

Now showing 1 - 6 of 6
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    Factors influencing the ways students develop intercultural sensitivity at an international school in China
    (2019-08) Hibbeln, Michael
    The purpose of this study was to examine high school teacher, parent, and student views of factors influencing the development of student intercultural sensitivity at an international school in China. Evidenced by the growth of K-12 international schools around the world, an intercultural education appears to be of value to an increasing number of families. Eleven teachers, 11 parents, and 16 students, for a total of 38 participants were interviewed, through seven structured focus group interviews and four individual follow-up interviews to explore themes related to this study’s four research questions. From this qualitative study, themes emerged indicating a unique set of both individual and institutional factors converging in schools that influence the development of student intercultural sensitivity. Teachers, parents and students indicate that intercultural sensitivity is developed through significant immersion experiences and interactions with others from different cultures. Individual factors influencing intercultural sensitivity are related to parents, contact with one’s home culture, diverse friends, motivation, family intercultural experiences, second language ability and student technology use. Institutional factors influencing student intercultural sensitivity are organizational policies, natural unforced activities such as co-curricular activities, school community events, a diverse teaching staff, and student body, contact with host culture through class trips, the International Baccalaureate framework, and language classes. Findings lend support to Bennett’s (1993) Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity (DMIS) and that an international school environment fosters the development of intercultural sensitivity.
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    Factors that influence participation of students in secondary science and mathematics subjects in IB Schools outside of the United States and Canada.
    (2012-01) Straffon, Elizabeth
    The purpose of this study was to investigate factors that affect the extent of international secondary students' participation in International Baccalaureate science and mathematics courses. The factors examined were gender, home region, size, percent host culture and age of the program, and coeducational and legal status of the school. Participation in math and science subjects was determined by analyzing the level and number of courses taken by students taking International Baccalaureate exams in 2010. Chi-Square and Cramer's V analysis were used to measure the effect of categorical variables on student participation and One-Way ANOVA and Bonferroni comparison of means were used to analyze the quantitative variables. All categorical variables were statistically significant (p<.01). Home region was the most important factor affecting participation in both math and science. Students from East, Southeast and South-Central Asia; and Eastern Europe have greater participation in math. The highest science participation came from students in East, Southern and Western Africa; and Southeast Asia. Top participators in science came from Australia/New Zealand, Northern Europe, East Africa and South-Central and Western Asia. State schools showed higher math and science participation. Science and math participation was also greater in all-male schools though associations were weak. Boys participated more than girls, especially in math. All quantitative variables were statistically significant. The program size had the largest effect size for both math and science with larger programs showing more participation at the higher level. A decreasing trend for age of the program and percent host culture was found for math participation. Three years of participation data were collected from an international school in Western Europe (n = 194). Variables included the influence of parent occupation, math preparedness (PSAT-Math), student achievement (GPA), and the importance of significant others in career and academic decisions. Findings indicate that performance on the PSAT- Math was the most important predictor of both science and mathematics participation. Twenty students were also interviewed. Results showed the importance of several key factors. These include the role of parents in student academic and career decisions, the importance of personal interest, and the contribution of early decisions in confidence-building.
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    The impact of AP and IB programs on high stakes college admissions
    (2012-09) Chodl, Joseph
    The purpose of this study was to examine the impact on undergraduate college admissions decisions at selective U.S. colleges and universities of student enrolment in the Advanced Placement (AP) or International Baccalaureate (IB) programs of international schools. A total of 30 interviews were conducted by the researcher with admissions personnel from selective colleges and universities in the United States. Additionally, two tracer studies were conducted from two similar international schools; one offering the IB Diploma program and the other offering the AP program. The tracer studies focused on AP/IB enrolment and its impact on college admissions success. Results of the study indicate that there is a strong correlation between enrolment in these programs and admission to selective undergraduate institutions (high correlations of r = -.77 and r = -.75 were found in both tracer studies). However, this correlation is influenced by specific secondary school leader commitments to these programs. It is not essential for secondary school students to be enrolled in these programs in order to gain admission to the most selective colleges and universities in the United States since AP and IB enrolment explains roughly 58% of the variance in admissions. Other important factors explain 42% of the variance. These factors were not identified in this study. These results have significant implications for both secondary schools, institutions of higher education, the IBO and College Board. The data from the two tracer studies and the interviews with admissions personnel indicate that participation in these programs enhance admissions chances, but admission is possible without such participation.
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    International Mindedness: Conceptualizations and Curriculum in an International School in Brazil
    (2017-05) Dewey, Nelson
    This dissertation is a qualitative, single case study of an international school in Brazil that explores how school administrators and teachers conceptualize international mindedness, and how it is developed within the curriculum of the International Baccalaureate Diploma Program. I provide a rich description of the context, developing four themes that reveal what international mindedness looks like in this context. I use a five-category typology in my review of constructs of international mindedness in the literature of K-12 international education and apply the same categories in my analysis of the participants' views. Drawing on literature from a variety of sources, I develop five continua for the analysis of international mindedness in the curriculum. Data collection and analysis procedures were informed by a social constructionist approach. Data sources include semi-structured interviews, documents, classroom observations, field notes and pictures collected during three visits. Among the documents collected are the school mission, vision and beliefs statement, the EAB learner profile, curriculum maps for the IB classes, and the upper school handbook. I found the American School of Brasilia to be a diverse and welcoming community. The administrators and teachers with whom I spoke did not demonstrate consensus in their conceptualizations of international mindedness, though I found they had a strong sense of school identity defined by their core documents. The school adopted the IB program six years ago and have taken principles from the IB program and applied them throughout the upper school. Teachers demonstrated a commitment to exposing students to a wide variety of perspectives and are active in drawing on the rich experiences contained within the school's diverse community. Participants provided examples the embodiment of international mindedness. However, some of the participants' conceptualizations of international mindedness suggested that it is something students have as a result of their lifestyles, not of the instructional program. The analysis of the curriculum of the IB courses reveals a superficial understanding of culture and little intentional development of international mindedness.
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    An investigation of international mindedness at two IB World Schools
    (2021-01) Condon, David
    The purpose of this study was to investigate how international mindedness is conceptualized and enacted at two International Baccalaureate World Schools, one in Hawaii and one in Japan. This study begins with the assumption that our educational systems, particularly those in preK-12 international schools, must prepare students to understand and appreciate different cultural perspectives, to assume a responsibility for the health of the planet, and to be able to interact and collaborate with people from diverse cultures in order to function as internationally minded responsible global citizens. Though international mindedness is a core concept in IB philosophy and a central aim of international education, its meaning remains complex, ambiguous and elusive. Equally unclear is how international mindedness manifests in different preK-12 school settings, i.e. what schools do that promote or hinder its development in students. By better understanding what is meant by international mindedness and identifying promising practices related to its promotion, schools may be better positioned to help develop this construct within their students and their educational programs.This qualitative study takes a social constructivist, interpretive approach to investigate the range of meanings of the term international mindedness and how it is enacted according to the perspectives of those experiencing them. Drawing on an IB-sponsored study from the University of Bath (Hacking et al., 2016), data from focus group interviews, lesson observations, school tours, and document and artifact analysis were collected. These data were then analyzed using a comparative case study approach informed by Bartlett and Vavrus’s (2017) process-oriented approach. Two broad categories of inquiry were pursued: the conceptualization of international mindedness and the enactment of international mindedness. Horizontal comparisons between stakeholders at each school were made, as well as between the two schools. Vertical comparisons of stakeholder conceptualizations with official IB definitions were also made. There are two major implications of this study. First, as stakeholder conceptualizations of international mindedness were largely similar, rather than attempting to establish precise meanings, preK-12 schools interested in developing international mindedness in their students should engage in community discussions of how the term manifests in their particular settings. Second, this study shows that the significant differences between the two schools came from their enactment of IM. The development of international mindedness is largely seen to result from direct experience with people and cultures different from one’s own. Interested schools should therefore carefully consider the kinds of experiences they are able to provide their students to develop their international mindedness.
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    Social class and the written and unwritten rules of competitive college admissions: A comparative study of International Baccalaureate schools in Ecuador
    (2020-07) Bittencourt, Tiago
    In 2006, the Ecuadorian Ministry of Education signed an agreement which sought to gradually introduce the International Baccalaureate’s (IB) Diploma Programme (DP) into as many of the country’s 1400 publicly funded secondary schools as possible. The initiative was premised on the belief that the quality of public education could be significantly improved if public school students had access to the education experiences and credentials which in Ecuador were historically restricted to private schools catering to affluent students. While subject to critique by several civil societies, the initiative generated a significant amount of enthusiasm and was widely perceived as an early indication that the public-private divide which marred the country’s educational system and cemented pervasive forms of inequality was finally being rectified. Undergirding the DP initiative is a crucial assumption; that increasing access to prestigious educational programs is an important and effective way of addressing inequality. However, as numerous scholars have shown, access alone is not enough to ensure equality and generate social mobility (see Apple, 1996; Aronowitz, 2003, 2008; Jack, 2018). Rather, an overt focus on access may ignore and even conceal the forms of advantage that are unevenly distributed within different segments of society (Tan, 2008). Issues ranging from the materiality of teaching and pedagogy (Vavrus & Salema, 2013) to the practices and “informed agency” of affluent parents and students (Brantlinger, 2003) are equally important and, if left unconsidered, can greatly diminish or even negate the promise a policy such as the DP initiative upholds. This dissertation interrogates this standing assumption by examining the social and cultural processes that produce and maintain inequality, and therefore interfere with the DP initiative’s stated intent. Through process-tracing and a multi-sited ethnography of a low-income public school and an affluent private school, I found that although sponsored by Ecuador’s Ministry of Education, the DP was not recognized as a valid credential for admission to local universities. Due to this existing policy disconnect, students from both schools strictly viewed the DP as a means of gaining access to universities abroad. As a result of this shared aspirational goal, it was possible to discern important differences in how students thought through and engaged with the application process for universities abroad. These differences highlighted the formative role of students’ familial backgrounds and institutional membership, suggesting that while access to DP allowed students to share similar desired goals, circumstances outside the confines of the classroom were more likely to determine whether these goals would indeed be accomplished. In sum, while public school students were encouraged to aspire to study abroad, they were not afforded the support or have the means to effectively engage with the required application and admission processes. The gradual realization that their dreams were likely to remain unfulfilled led students to experience to a mash of affects (Berlant, 2011) which included frustration, disengagement and acquiescence. These affective responses not only conflicted with the DP initiative’s intent of equalizing opportunity, but in many ways served to reinforce existing patterns and systems of inequality. The findings of this study are not intended to discredit the DP initiative – admonishing a seemingly well-intentioned policy is a common but often unfruitful endeavor. Moreover, given the study’s design, any assertion of representation would be misleading, and therefore the impulse for generalization should be significantly tempered. Rather it is to showcase the grounded productions and the ensuing shortcomings which limit and even counteract the policy’s intended goal of addressing social inequality and equalizing opportunity. While the study was envisioned as a direct response to a specific initiative, the emerging insights speak to issues of class culture and the “internationalization” (Knight, 2004; 2015) of public education. Specifically, it will address the relationship between social class and conceptions of “responsibility”, and instances of what Bourdieu (2007) terms as “capital conversion”.