The dearth of international Baccalaureate schools across Africa

The Geneva-registered International Baccalaureate (IB) celebrated its 50^th anniversary as an organisational entity in 2014, having first appeared in 1964 as the International Schools Examination Syndicate. In January 2015 the 5,000^th programme had appeared at a school in Albania. The IB, now offering four programmes, has moved significantly over recent years into state funded schooling, especially in the United States, and Ecuador. At the same time there has been no significant growth in Africa where the operational paradigm remains largely unchanged since the 1980s. The 76 schools in 25 countries located across the continent of Africa in mid-2015 accounted for just 1.8 per cent of all schools worldwide. Twelve countries in Africa had a solitary ‘international school’ offering the IB programmes. This paper is the first to address this situation. This article reveals the growth and extent of IB activity across Africa, and offers possible reasons for the ongoing dearth of schools.     

Responses of schools to accountability systems using multiple measures: the case of New York City elementary schools

Many studies point to potential unintended consequences of accountability systems such as when schools narrow their teaching to fixate on tested subjects. As a result, some states and districts in the USA have complemented the federal test-based accountability system with additional measures of educational practices to hold schools accountable on multiple measures. To explore the consequences of such systems, this study focuses on the responses of nine elementary schools to a multiple-measure accountability system in New York City, including high-stakes tests and quality reviews. While some schools showed broader improvement efforts, results suggest the state test remains the dominant measure in driving responses of schools, and in some cases, the quality review further reinforces the schools' focus on the test.     

国际化学校的若干问题研究

一、国际化学校的含义国际化是人类从狭义的地域联系走向交往程度和交往水平不断提高的过程,体现为在经济和科技走向全球一体化基础上的政治、文化、教育等方面的相互影响、相互渗透、相互融合。教育的国际化作为社会国际化的一个重要方面,也是一个不断推进的过程。而国际化学校则是我国教育和外国教育相互影响、相互渗透的过程在学校实体之中的具体反映。目前,国际流行的国际学校(INTERNA TION ALSCH OO L)概念,与我们要讨论的国际化学校有所不同。国际学校的起源,一般被认为产生于20世纪的50年代,直接动因是经济全球化进程中世界…     

The promise of advantage: Englishness in IB international schools

For the ‘global middle classes’, cultural reproduction increasingly involves the international school as they promise considerable distinction [Bourdieu, P. 1984. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press] granting University passage past Anglo gate-keepers. This paper draws on research providing a multiphase exploration of the character of senior leadership in IB international schools. Participants emerged as white ‘English’ and Christian. However, data collected show that these leaders do not operationalise (organisational) international values; instead, they draw upon their own societal values in leadership. Yet, their stories and outlooks of global-mindedness sit uncritically, framed in ‘Inner Circle English’ [Kachru, B. 1985. “Standards, Codification and Sociolinguistic Realism: The English Language in the Outer Circle.” In English in the World: Teaching and Learning the Language and Literatures, edited by R. Quirk and H. G. Widdowson, 11–34. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press] advantage. Participants lean on a power-narrative of middle-class ‘Englishness’. As powerful policy-makers, this orientation defines the international school’s mission and vision. It appeals to the surge of international education, particularly in the global South, where international schools can be seen as incubators of ‘English’ epistemic advantage. It is unlikely that the consolidation of the ‘Brand of Britain’ will affect this demographic and their choices to ‘go UK’. The affordance of diminishing EU participation in the UK higher education system may work in favour of globalising middle classes and elites. Conversely, it is unlikely that lower income EU or UK domestic HE participation is likely to profit from this move.     

The project of the other: developing inclusive learning communities in schools

This paper considers the possible nature and membership of learning communities in schools and what evidence there may be of middle leaders trying to develop and sustain learning communities with their colleagues, even though these communities encompass asymmetrical power relationships between members. Although it is argued that students and support staff are part of these learning communities, not apart from them, the limited evidence from this study does not support this. How power is used and distributed to construct collaborative cultures, and the part played by middle leaders, is central to the development of a learning community. The promotion of dialogue and consultation amongst members helps them to generate a sense of community which, in turn, enables them to tackle effectively the tasks and dilemmas facing them. Empirical evidence from a small scale study in England indicates the ways in which some middle leaders have tried to build learning communities, and their colleagues’ views on their efforts, while negotiating the value‐laden tensions and dilemmas inherent in all middle management posts in educational organisations.     

The international,global and intercultural dimensions in schools: an analysis of four internationalised Israeli schools

Many educational systems worldwide are making substantial efforts to integrate an international dimension into local schools, fostering significant changes in the processes of instruction and learning as well as transformations at pedagogical and organisational levels. In this paper, we analyse data collected in four schools in Israel that the local press and educational authorities have acknowledged as schools that prominently and comprehensively incorporated international, global and intercultural dimensions. We employ a case-study approach based on interviews with principals and teachers; analysis of schools' websites and documents; and on-site observations, in order to analyse the expression of internationalisation, understand who is involved in the implementation process, and stimulate thinking about the broader impact of this process. We find that ideological and pragmatic reasons underlie schools' motivations to internationalise; their population and status comprise major factors in the decision regarding how, where, why, and when to integrate international and intercultural dimensions. The stakeholders interviewed perceive of internationalisation as offering both cosmopolitan capital to the students and a distinctive feature to the school. The schools demonstrate diverse internationalisation patterns that are neither monitored nor guided by any regulatory agency. These findings contribute to the identification of the factors promoting or delaying the internalisation process and to the understanding of the impact of this process on schools.     

The governing of international schools: the implications of ownership and profit motive

There are in excess of 5000 English-medium international schools worldwide. This article reports a study of the governing of such schools that explored in particular the implications of ownership and profit motive. The research entailed a questionnaire-based survey of international school head teachers and interviews with representatives of accrediting organisations, owners and head teachers of international schools. Governors in all settings found maintaining a strategic as opposed to an operational role difficult. The distinction between privately owned for-profit and not-for-profit categories of international schools could be unclear. It could change over time and private owners may gain financially personally in not-for-profit institutional settings. Head teachers in privately owned schools, even those schools operated for financial profit, viewed the governing arrangements positively, perhaps because they often had considerable autonomy over educational matters even though they may be excluded from the governing of financial/resource matters. This arrangement has implications for the governing model. Governing bodies of community-owned schools, which in the sample were all not-for-profit, were typically fully elected or self-perpetuating or a hybrid of the two. Fully elected boards, especially fully elected parent boards, and fully self-perpetuating boards can be problematic and the hybrid model has distinct advantages.     

国际工程项目进度管理中CPM的应用

在介绍国际工程项目管理定义的基础上,对项目进度计划的4种方法进行了分析,并以柏马公路项目为例,分析了CPM进度计划在大型国际工程项目中的应用.     

Exclusion of Travellers in state schools

Travellers in Scotland and the rest of the UK are often still mobile. In particular, the showground and circus communities remain highly mobile for much of the year. The overt stereotyping, discrimination and racial prejudice faced mostly by Gypsies and Travellers is said to keep them out of schools and certainly has contributed to low attendance levels and even non-attendance and dropout before the due leaving date. The research carried out in Scotland over a six-year period included both quantitative and qualitative methods, targeted schools, local authorities and a range of Travellers representing different groups, life-styles and generations. The reality of disrupted learning for schools and for Travellers is revealed. For thosewho do access schools and attend regularly there are still many covert barriers to successful learning. Such institutional discrimination has not previously been researched and is hardly acknowledged, yet makes a significant contribution to Travellers' success or failure in school. The mismatch between these pupils' particular learning needs and the provision made for a settled, local community offers a paradigm for many other interrupted learners: reduced selfesteem, demotivation, disaffection and eventual dropout for some.The essentially excluding school system and the self-excluding Traveller pupil (parental condoned absence) conspire to perpetuate cycles of underachievement and marginalization, confirming their social exclusion within society. Yet, at a grass roots level, innovative projects and approaches are being developed on an ad hoc basis. At the European level, particular emphasis is put on the need for open and Distance Learning to support Travellers. The lack of state funded-support for out of school learning does little to engage Travellers with learning. The findings are described and analysed within the broader framework of the literature and practices in this area in Europe and Australia.     

The disjuncture between raw scores and pass rates in New York State public schools: Turning success into failure

This paper demonstrates that ‘failure’ is not a direct reflection of student knowledge. Using five years of New York State school-level data, we compare passing rates to raw-scores. We find, first, that when ‘cut scores’ are raised, more students fail even if raw scores are increasing. Second, increasing cut scores disproportionately fails more poor students than non-poor students, despite that poor students have the fastest rates of raw score improvement. Third, raised cut scores transform the smallest raw score gaps between high- and low-poverty schools into the largest passing gaps. Thus, while students in poor schools know more than they did previously, and although they have learned at superior rates, they are recast as the biggest ‘failures’ they have ever been.     

Education for international understanding in Japanese schools

Japan is in a unique position regarding the question of education for international understanding: it participated actively in the Second World War, which is lost through the tragic events of which we are all aware. This dual heritage, from the war and then the post-war period, is clear in the two following articles which describe from very different viewpoints the role of eduction for international understanding in the national context. Reading them, in either order, should in our point of view not so much open a debate (who is against peace?) as on the contrary, stimulate thought on future action. The first article describes the evolution and current status of education for international understanding within the official school system. The second, theoretical, puts forth the point of view of those who work within the peace movement in Japan and who feel something more and different is needed from the formal school system. Such contrast, even tension, between two attitudes equally but differently aiming towards the same goal, is an excellent illustration of the fact that even though education for international understanding and peace, through its efforts, its successer or its inadequacies, is more than ever a question of foremost importance, it is one that no educational system can pretend to have definitively settled.     

韩国国际学校海外办学状况调查与启示

韩国海外办学起步较早,至今有超过60年的办学经验.韩国政府部门通过驻当地总领馆,直接或间接参与国际学校的董事会选举、人事管理等系列工作;韩国财团和企业也在韩国国际学校的建设中扮演了重要角色.通过对韩国海外办学信息的整理与分析,可以看到建立稳定的经费筹集系统、政府支持及参与管理、建立完善的教学管理体系等措施将有助于海外国际学校的规范性发展.这些对我国海外国际学校的建设是有益的启示.     

国际合作办学的模式与实践

本文结合浙江工程学院的国际合作办学实践，阐述了国际合作办学的模式和对有关问题的思考。