Globalising, transnational, cosmopolitan ‘elites’ are on the rise. As Bourdieu relates, distinction is central to a continuation and replication of ‘class’ identity. Next to the family, schools are considered to be the most influential modes of such replication. For elite classes, the national private school is now complemented by international schools: offering more cosmopolitan and globalising forms of distinction. Leading this international school trend is the International Baccalaureate.
The International Baccalaureate is an educational franchise that covers schools in three continuums: Primary Years Programme, Middle Years Programme, Diploma Programme. The IB mission statement orients towards global citizenship education, promoting peace, equity, and understanding. This emerges in the affective domain in schools (promoted for students, teachers and leadership) as the IB Learner Profile.
Autonomous, deregulated, and often under loose franchise control. These schools are witnessing very strong growth. However, surprisingly little is known about who leads them: how they are led, how leadership defines them, how much influence leadership has, and what the vacuum of marketplace globalisation means in this context.
Due to the distances involved, research into leadership in international schools is not only scarce, but invariably ‘snap shot’ in nature. What emerges is a debilitating culture of change and transition, short termism and light footedness. Research in this field trends towards the positivist. Qualitative and critical research is rare. Research on highest leadership seemingly absent.
This research provides phenomenological insight into the character of leadership at the top of IB international schools via a multi-phase, two-year engagement with participants. The study was conducted at six IB international schools in Western Europe.
It emerges that the organisational consistency and global outlook provided by the IBLP is secondary to most directors’ leadership approach. Instead, leaders draw significant capital from their own societal values; a biography of being white, ‘English’ middle class, and Christian.
In leadership, directors posit normative allegiance with empowerment models, yet data collected highlights transactional process, focused around a culture of change. Analysis uncovers a commodification of self for leadership, based upon individuality, elevating change over nurture. The transition and change, so unhelpful for these schools emerges as a defining characteristic of senior leadership.
