Current Issues in Comparative Education (CICE) - Volume 20 - Issue 1 - Education for international mindedness: Life history reflections on schooling and the shaping of a cosmopolitan outlook

Oct 15, 2026

Education for international mindedness investigates how schooling is understood to shape worldviews across a life course, using life history and narrative approaches. Drawing on interviews with people who completed International Baccalaureate (IB) programs from the 1970s to the 2010s, it compares narratives linked to “international schools” and “national schools.” The study highlights tensions in measuring international mindedness and enriches sociological critiques of international education and cosmopolitanism.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages16

Reading Time40 min

AccessFree to download

Education for international mindedness

International mindedness as an ambiguous and contested construct

The study design and life-history narrative approach

Comparing international and national school narratives

Current Issues in Comparative Education (CICE) Volume 20, Issue 1, Fall 2017 Education for international mindedness: Life history reflections on schooling and the shaping of a cosmopolitan outlook Katie Wright La Trobe University Emma Buchanan The University of Melbourne The development of “international mindedness” is an established aim of international education and has recently gained prominence in national school systems. Despite its increasing salience, it remains an ambiguous construct and an understudied aspect of schooling. It is implicated in globalized educational markets and attempts to measure international mindedness and its kindred concepts, such as cosmopolitanism, are fraught. Drawing on a study of subjective perceptions of the influence of schooling over the life course, this article explores education for international mindedness. Informed by life history and narrative approaches, it provides an analysis of reflections from people who completed International Baccalaureate (IB) programs from the 1970s to 2010s. Commonalities and differences in narratives of those who attended “international schools” and “national schools” are explored in relation to influences people attribute to shaping their worldviews. The article illustrates the value of qualitative approaches and offers new insights into sociological critiques of international education and international mindedness, grounding and enlivening recent characterizations in complex life histories. A central aim of international education is to promote the kinds of knowledge, skills and understandings that foster in students a predisposition towards cosmopolitanism (Cambridge & Thompson, 2004; Matthews & Sidhu, 2005) . While various descriptors are employed to characterize this attribute, international mindedness is the term which has garnered most traction, largely due to its promotion through educational programs developed by the International Baccalaureate (IB) (Bunnell, 2008; Haywood, 2007) . The IB is an educational foundation established in 1968 with the dual aim of developing an internationally transportable academic credential and creating an educational program that fostered “a sense of common humanity”(Rizvi, 2009, p. viii). Since the introduction of the original IB Diploma Program (DP) for students in their final two years of secondary schooling in a small number of international schools, the IB has grown tremendously and its offerings have expanded to four different educational programs, all of which seek to promote international mindedness. As articulated by the IB, key attributes of international mindedness are global engagement, multilingualism, and intercultural understanding (Sriprakash, Singh, & Qi, 2014) . While closely associated with international education, the intensification of globalization, mobility, and transnational flows has seen the values invoked by international mindedness become increasingly salient to educational endeavors in national schooling contexts (Fielding & © 2017, Current Issues in Comparative Education, Teachers College, Columbia University. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Current Issues in Comparative Education 20(1), 68-83. Wright & Buchanan Vidovich, 2017; Lai, Shum, & Zhang, 2014) . Yet despite widespread usage and growing significance in educational discourse, international mindedness remains an ambiguous concept and an understudied aspect of schooling and curricula, with conceptual discussion and scholarly debate outweighing empirical exploration (Belal, 2017; Cause, 2011; Harwood & Bailey, 2012; Tarc & Beatty, 2012; Sriprakash et al., 2014) . International mindedness is, moreover, an increasingly problematized concept. Recent scholarship has underscored the multiple and contradictory dimensions of international mindedness and its kindred concepts, notably cosmopolitanism, and critiqued the IB for its position in globalized neoliberal educational markets (Doherty, Luke, Shield, & Hincksman, 2012; T

FAQs

What does the article examine about international mindedness in schooling?

It explores how education for international mindedness is perceived to influence people’s later lives, using life history reflections and narrative accounts.

How is the International Baccalaureate (IB) connected to international mindedness in the article?

The IB is presented as a major driver of international mindedness, promoting attributes such as global engagement, multilingualism, and intercultural understanding.

What comparison does the study make in people’s narratives?

The article compares commonalities and differences in narratives attributed to those who attended “international schools” versus “national schools,” focusing on how these experiences shape worldviews.

Oct 15, 2026

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