International Schools and International Education

Improving Teaching, Management and Quality

Mary Hayden, Jeff Thompson, Mary Hayden, Jeff Thompson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN:
  9781134987283
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

This work tackles the issues that staff and management of international schools need to address in order to ensure that their teaching and organization is of a high standard and quality. It contains a wide range of contributions from international school experts around the world.

Chapter 1

Quality in diversity

Mary Hayden and Jeff Thompson

Diversity in international schools

The first edition of the International Schools Journal of the new millennium begins with an editorial by Edna Murphy (Murphy, 2000), who highlights some of the questions which have been raised not infrequently in recent years within the context of international schools. In raising again the questions ‘What is an international school?’ and ‘What is an international education?’, Murphy comes to the conclusion that:

Maybe it is time… to stop trying to organize the unorganizable by dint of words alone… We might want to accept, finally, that we do not, in this community, speak with one voice; that we are educators with different experiences and backgrounds working in many different kinds of schools for different reasons, and whose common enterprise reflects a rich variety of approaches; and that we may or may not eventually arrive at a point where we conform to a single vision.

Almost by definition, such an argument will not meet with complete agreement amongst the wide community of international educators – such agreement might, indeed, serve to disprove the very point she makes. There will be few, however, who would take issue with the underlying premise that the community of those involved in the world of international schools is a diverse one. A striking feature which most of us would associate with our own mental picture of international schools or international education is a lack of homogeneity. Such an absence of homogeneity – or a presence of diversity – can itself be viewed from a number of differing perspectives. It may be considered, for instance, from the point of view of the wide variety of schools that claim to be international schools. Murphy (2000) reminds us that quite what is meant by the term ‘international school’ remains a moot point, since ‘No one has so far come up with a definition of “international school” that does not exclude some schools which consider themselves international, and does include others which may not’ as well as highlighting the absence of a shared perception of the meaning of the term ‘international education’. Indeed, our own contribution to the same journal highlighted our perception that the two terms are not well defined and do not share the one-to-one relationship which seems sometimes to be assumed. Such a lack of shared agreement notwithstanding, it seems likely that there are currently at least one thousand such institutions (Hayden and Thompson, 1995a) which include amongst their number those with differing philosophies, whether these be essentially utilitarian, pragmatic or ideologically focused (Hayden and Thompson, 2000).

Clearly then, diversity in this context can be seen to manifest itself at what might be described as the global level, the ‘macro’ diversity which means that it is almost certainly true to say that, even taking into account groupings of international schools that share the same underlying philosophy, there are no two international schools that share precisely the same characteristics. Although diversity of this type has its drawbacks – no doubt the very nature of the differences to be found between such schools is at the root of the difficulties experienced in arriving at a definition of the ‘international school’ label that suits all – it also has its attractions, and many of those teachers and administrators who have chosen to spend their professional lives in the transient world of international schools undoubtedly find a career spent in a number of different cultural contexts stimulating, challenging and personally and professionally fulfilling.

Diversity in international education

To revert to the consideration of international education, however – and we would wish to argue that it is the promotion of international education and an associated set of values, rather than the counting or definition of international schools, that is important – such ‘macro diversity’ does not appear to have an obvious role to play in the promotion of such a set of values or, as it has been described elsewhere (Hayden and Thompson, 1995b), an ‘international attitude’. The development of such an attitude is more likely to be promoted in the context of another, familiar, manifestation of diversity, that which is found at what might be described as the local level, the ‘micro’ diversity that characterizes so many individual international schools in terms of the large numbers of different nationalities, different cultural backgrounds, different languages spoken and different religious beliefs to be found amongst the student, and perhaps teaching, body. The extent of such diversity will clearly vary, according to the school’s basic raison d’être, whether catering for a largely expatriate, transient population or for a more stable population of students drawn largely from the local community or indeed, as in the case of the United World Colleges, catering for a student population deliberately selected in order to capitalize on cultural diversity and to make that diversity a major feature of the student experience. Our own research (Hayden and Thompson, 1996) suggests that many students in international schools value interaction with those of other cultures as one of the fundamental characteristics of international education which promotes the development of an ‘international attitude’, a feature which, as Walker (2000) points out, is put to good effect as ‘many of these schools claim to do more than just encourage the “rubbing of shoulders”. The deliberate, planned interaction of students from different cultural backgrounds is widely regarded as a cornerstone of international education.’

Clearly this type of diversity within a school can make a positive contribution to its efforts to promote international education. Even if, to coin Walker’s phrase, no attempt is made actively to build on the ‘rubbing of shoulders’, the relationships formed across cultural and linguistic divides may well lead to the modification and development of attitudes amongst the student population. It could, however, be argued to be – as could the diversity amongst schools already noted – at a relatively superficial (though not unimportant) level. To draw an analogy with the concept of validity, it could be described as ‘face diversity’ – that which is ‘obvious’ to the passerby or transient visitor – as compared with a more fundamental notion of what might be described as ‘construct’ diversity. Diversity at the ‘face’ level will be most obvious in those schools with students, teachers and administrators from a wide range of cultural, national and linguistic backgrounds. Amongst those schools with populations which are less diverse (monocultural schools within national systems, or essentially monocultural schools which are ‘displaced’ from their own national context) such diversity will be less in evidence to the observer. This does not necessarily mean, however, that diversity at deeper levels cannot be built into the students’ experience as a means of promoting international education, whatever the nature of the school in question. In discussing the development of a model for international education, Thompson (1998) argued for the importance of Board members, administrators and teachers arranging ‘a learning environment that will provide opportunity, encouragement and support to those who are participating in it, and through which international education has the possibility of being experienced’, going on to argue that the principal ingredients of such an environment could be represented in what have been termed the three dimensions of international education: a balanced formal curriculum, opportunities for celebrating cultural diversity and a range of appropriate administrative styles. These three dimensions could, it is argued, act as the three major strands in which diversity is manifest, with the three major ‘constructs’ being curriculum diversity, diversity of cultural experience and administrative/organizational diversity. These three constructs will be considered in more detail as follows.

Diversity through the curriculum

Opportunities for building in diversity to the curriculum will vary according to the nature of the school, its underlying philosophy of education and the nature of the student/teacher population. A school that wishes to promote international education, but within a context where it is constrained by commitment to the formal curriculum of a national system, will clearly have less opportunity than one in which no particular external curriculum is adhered to or, if it is, where that external curriculum is one that attempts to build in diversity as a means of promoting international education. Choice of formal curriculum, therefore, where that is possible, will clearly affect the possibility of diversity. Taking the definition of curriculum, however, in its broadest sense to include not only the ‘subject’ dimensions of the student’s school experience, but also every other dimension – the informal as well as the formal – it is clear, as Thompson (1998) pointed out, that opportunities for ‘interstitial learning’ can be built in within and around whatever formal curriculum is espoused. Diversity can thus not only be built in terms of, for instance, the opportunity to study some subjects in greater depth than others, or some subjects in different ways from others by incorporating different styles of teaching to cater for different preferences in styles of learning; diversity can also be built in by encouraging students to be members of groups in different social and cultural contexts – perhaps by encouraging links between older and younger students, or links between students and other members of the community – in addition to the normal context of student and teacher relationships.

Diversity of cultural experience

Again, it is clearly the case that diversity in terms of interaction with, and knowledge of, different cultural contexts has the potential to be built in more easily to some school contexts than to others. For some, a rich resource is available in every lesson and in every student interaction in extracurricular activities. For others, operating within an essentially monocultural context, such opportunities may need to be more actively engineered but, in most cases, will nevertheless be feasible in organizational terms. There would be very few schools in the English national system, for instance, that would not be able to build into the curriculum (whether formal or informal) input from, and links with, those of other cultural backgrounds from the dominant culture of the school.

Diversity through organization and management of the institution

The organizational basis for any school is clearly crucial in determining everything else that arises within that school; management styles, decision-making processes, and school mission statements being among the explicit features into which diversity can be built. The more ‘hidden’ dimensions such as relationships between colleagues, or gender and cultural balance in senior positions, are also features where awareness of the importance of diversity can contribute to a richer experience for the student in terms of encouraging the development of an international outlook.

Concepts of quality for international education

We have been arguing thus far that diversity is not only an inherent feature of international schools, but is also a crucial aspect of the process of international education which must be purposefully built into the dimensions of the student’s experience, where it may not necessarily be present as a natural part of that experience in any given context. However, it is clearly important to go on to ask the question ‘If diversity, in all these kinds of manifestation, is at the core of international education, how can we, as international educators, ensure not only that appropriate forms of diversity are included in the programmes offered to students but also that the quality of provision is the highest attainable?’

The notion of quality is not a new one, either in its relation to the wide range of goods and services we receive as a part of our daily lives, or in relation to the many aspects of the various processes of education going on in different contexts around the world. The literature is full of debate and discussion about how best to define, implement, measure, assure and control quality in respect of those processes. Such approaches, however, rely on an assumption that quality has a universality, a stability and an objectivity that some would find difficult to accept. On the contrary, quality, it has been argued, is subjective, value-based and dynamic and the concept of quality for proponents of such an argument is problematic not primarily because of the technical issues of its measurement (such as an obsession in national debates about the so-called ‘league-tables’ of school performance) but much more fundamentally because of the ‘philosophical issue of value and dispute’ (Dahlberg, Moss and Pence, 1999). Although these authors are arguing in relation to studies in early childhood education, the points they are making in respect of the concept of ‘quality’ have much wider application and are certainly worthy of consideration in an international education context. They argue that ‘quality’ is not a neutral term but is socially constructed, arising from a ‘… “discourse of quality”, which is itself the product of several related forces, including Enlightenment thinking and a particular rationality found in the world of business. Above all, the concept of quality makes sense within a philosophical framework, a way of understanding the world, what Habermas (1983) refers to as the “Project of Modernity’” (Moss, 1999). As Moss goes on to make clear, this philosophical perspective, which values certainty, linearity, objectivity and universality, has had a hold on the world for over three hundred years. In such circumstances it is very difficult to reconceptualize the notion of quality to accommodate diversity, subjectivity and multiple values – all characteristics which have been identified with dimensions of international education. In order to work with such complexity, Dalhberg et al (1999) have proposed a Project of Postmodernity, in which making sense of, or evaluating, educational institutions requires a different discourse which they refer to as ‘meaning making’. The authors explain that whereas ‘the discourse of quality attempts to judge the conformity of practice to predetermined criteria, the discourse of meaning making, in contrast, is first and foremost about constructing and deepening understanding of the institution and its projects, especially pedagogic work -to make meaning of what is going on’ (Moss, 1999).

Such arguments notwithstanding, it would have to be recognized that the concept of quality, in a more traditionalist form, already exists implicitly within the international education community, though not necessarily based on a totally shared perception of what precisely it might mean. When students from international schools are striving to perform sufficiently well in end-of-school examinations in order to be accepted into the university of their choice, when they participate in team games with students of other institutions, when they are encouraged to participate in experiences such as the Model United Nations or debating societies which encourage the development of skills which are not formally assessed but which are nevertheless valued by those promoting the concept of international education, when features such as these are part of the student’s experience, it is clear that concepts of quality exist within the institutions promoting international education. Whether understandings of such concepts are shared amongst those institutions is another issue, and it will almost certainly be the case that a variety of different understandings will come to light when the question of quality is discussed amongst any group of international educators. In editing this book, we have set out to address the question of what quality might mean in the context of international education by focusing on the three major areas already identified above, and within these three areas a range of issues relating to quality have been addressed by our contributing authors, all as they relate to international schools.

Issues relating to quality in assessment, in the interstitial curriculum, in national schools, in the politics of international education and in the extent to which international schools are inclusive are all raised in the first section with, in each case, arguments being made in relation to how quality can be determined with respect to the dimension in question. Quality in the context of issues relating to the ‘human resource’ dimension of international education, students (student mobility), teachers (recruitment, professional development, women in senior management roles) and the local community is discussed in the next section, with the last section focusing on school management: school effectiveness/school improvement and its implications for quality in international schools, long-term planning/strategic planning as a means of building in quality to the organizational elements of school, and some suggestions arising from the recent research relating to globalization which may help to support the development of quality in the international school context. Consideration of the links between the global context of international schools and the national context of many other schools also acts as the basis for discussions relating to how quality may be enhanced not only in one particular context.

Towards international standards setting

The task of generating a quality framework for international education rests on the extent to which an appropriate system of standards can be established in relation to criteria for judgement. In turn, this also raises important questions relating to authority, and the associated issue of the nature of the constituency which properly generates, protects and maintains that authority. The ultimate credibility and status of international education, and of the institutions through which it is promoted, are intimately bound up with the standards which are consistently demonstrated by them. In some respects the growth in the number and styles of international schools has mirrored the growth in the multinational commercial sectors, and in searching for a definition of standards for the international education context it may be appropriate to consider whether there is anything to be learnt from the notions of globalization in the commercial world.

From one perspective the growth of international standards is seen as part of the development of a worldwide advanced industrialized society, which requires a set of technical rules and conventions to enable it to function properly. Under such an arrangement a dominant player in the market, such as a global software producer, may occupy a key position in the determination of standards, as a result of which the standard is one that will be imposed. A quite different perspective rejects the notion that standard setting is merely a technical matter. In social policy fields the plurality of stakeholders with a wide r...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Notes on contributors
• Preface
• 1 Quality in diversity
• PART A: THROUGH THE CURRICULUM
• PART B: THROUGH HUMAN RESOURCES
• PART C: THROUGH SCHOOL MANAGEMENT
• PART D: CONCLUSION
• Index