Internationalism self-assessment project
Project Poster (316 kb, Word)
The International Schools Association (ISA) is the most senior organization in the world of international education. Founded in 1951, the ISA was the first educational non-governmental organization to be granted consultative status at UNESCO. The ISA has an important historical relationship with the IB, having initiated both the International Schools Examination Syndicate (the forerunner of the IB) and the International Schools Association Curriculum (which became the IB Middle Years Programme).
A major objective of the ISA is the promotion of international education in all its aspects. It argues that the true measure of a school is not its name but the manner in which it lives its philosophy on a daily basis. Consequently, the ISA has developed a self-assessment instrument for schools to evaluate the extent of their “internationalist values” and to use in improving their own curriculum, as needed. The origins of this self-assessment instrument can be found some ten years ago, when Anne-Marie Pierce (at that time the head of Washington International School and a senior member of the ISA board) set about devising a questionnaire for schools that was designed to provide some idea of the extent of their internationalism. In 2000, the ISA board began a development process lasting over two years that has resulted in the current instrument. The concept and nature of the instrument was introduced to a wider audience at a conference in Geneva in September 2002—“Interpreting International Education”—jointly organized by the IB and the Centre for the study of Education in an International Context (CEIC) at the University of Bath.
Following exploratory talks, the ISA invited IB Research Team to join a collaborative project to evaluate the implementation of the internationalism self-assessment instrument. The evaluation study, which ran between August 2003 and November 2004, was in three stages:
- development of evaluation instruments and implementation of data collection
- supplementary data collection
- validation.
Twelve schools in eight countries were invited to participate in the data collection and analysis phase of this project by conducting self-assessment of their own international values using the ISA instrument. The participating schools are dispersed over a wide geographical area. They form a varied group of public and private institutions including schools that offer the IB curriculum. Some of the schools are members of the ISA, and some are members of, and accredited by, the European Council of International Schools (ECIS).
The aim of this project is to find out how the self-assessment instrument works in practice in a variety of different school contexts. The project team is interested not only in the outcomes of self-assessment, such as reports, but also in the decision-making processes involved.
Publications relating to this project
Cambridge, J. and Carthew, C. (2007) Schools self-evaluating their international values: a case study. In Hayden, M.C., Levy, J. & Thompson, J.J. (2007) Handbook of Research in International Education Sage, London, (pp. 283-298). ISBN-10 1-4129-1971-1.
Carthew, C. and Cambridge, J. (2005) Schools self-assess their international values. IB World 43, p. 20. (May 2005).
Cambridge, J. and Carthew, C. (2004) Schools self-assess their international values. ISA News p. 7 (July 2004).
Cambridge, J. and Carthew, C. (2004) Schools self-assess their international values. IB World 39, p. 15. (May 2004).
Conference presentations and workshops relating to this project
ECIS conference, Nice (November 2006) Schools self-assessing their international values (J. Cambridge).
ECIS conference, The Hague, (November 2005) Evaluating the ISA International Values Self-assessment Instrument (J.Cambridge, C. Carthew and Zhen Yao).
International Schools Association, Oegstgeest (July 2005) (J. Cambridge and Zhen Yao, guest speakers on Internationalism Self-Assessment Project).
ECIS Conference, Nice (November 2004) ISA/IBRU Internationalism Self-Assessment Project, (J. Cambridge, C. Carthew and Zhen Yao).
Alliance for International Education, Dűsseldorf (October 2004) ISA/IBRU Internationalism Self-Assessment Project, (J. Cambridge and C. Carthew).
International Schools Association, Segovia (July 2004) Keynote address on Internationalism Self-Assessment Project (J.Cambridge and J.J. Thompson).
