Teachers working in international schools can be understood as gearing a student’s disposition towards the ability and preparedness to handle and value differences and diversity. The process of internationalisation of education implies a process of change pertaining to the mission, vision and delivery of education. In an effort to cope with a number of challenges from within and outside of the Netherlands, a Dutch School Group in Amsterdam embarked on a process of change by adopting an international dimension to the students’ experience. Instead of these schools becoming more similar to each other, i.e. converging towards an internationalising ‘master-viewpoint’, the schools’ alignment under pressure showed a process of ‘anisomorphism’: their education’s primary function, approach, tasks, role and objectives for society were changing into different internationalising directions. However, the pragmatic expectations and actions, particularly of the parents and the students, were creating new boundaries and rationales for the schools as bargaining zones. The ‘shifting borders’ between the schools were becoming more connected with a growing international focus, yet had different pragmatic and ideological implications for each of them. The result was that these borders became permeable, a nominal erosion of differences between the ‘international’ school selectively catering for children of internationally mobile families and the other schools catering for all children in the Netherlands. ‘International schools’ became places where students were trained to engage with difference and diversity and where the students had not necessarily been crossing geographical borders. This raises the issue of the role of education in a multicultural and globalising society, as –in this case- an increase in institutional diversity within the specific Dutch national context, and an increased uncertainty about the multiple aims of education, stretched the educational as well as social boundaries which constrain the futures for which students are being prepared.

The present inquiry sets out to explore the self as an expatriate eacher working in international schools, through the lens of ositioning. To better understand complex phenomena such as the self and its episodic encounters in the social arena, this study uses positioning theory as an analytical framework. The self is followed as it moves from its private sphere to the social milieu where it takes on its multiplicity, as a social being. The dynamics of positioning is illustrated by the mutually determined triad. Hence, the self is looked at in one of its main social engagements: the recruitment where the social episode is mutually framed by the storylines of the participants, the social force and the position taken on. Illustrations are given to exemplify and extend the use of positioning theory in an international school context. The implications brought up by the results of the present inquiry are applicable not only to the expatriate teacher but also to the wider expatriate community.

This thesis explored the relationships between 1) Self-compassion 2) Cognitive Emotion Regulation and 3) Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and teacher stress in a foreign international school setting. The retrospective, multi-tiered study investigated a total of 177 expatriated teachers working in multiple international schools around the globe; at least 17 of whom indicated that they had completed a MBSR course. A mixed-methods approach was used over three stages utilising the following instruments: 1) an adapted stress impact survey, 2) Teacher Interview Protocol (TIP), 3) the short forms of the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ-SF), the Self-Compassion Scale (SCS-SF), and the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-4). Results suggest that teachers’ beliefs about stress correlate with job satisfaction; 82.6% of respondents who reported that stress has ‘hardly any effect’ also reported that they liked their job overall; whereas, 76.9% and 36.4% of respondents that believed stress had affected their teaching ‘some’ or ‘a lot’ reported liking their job, respectively. Results also indicate that higher perceived stress is strongly correlated with both 1) decreased self-compassion (r = -.491, p < .001) and 2) increased use of non-adaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies, such as Catastrophizing (r= < 0.392, p < .001). All five adaptive cognitive coping strategies were positively correlated with Self-Compassion, four were significant; only Refocus on Planning failed to reach significance at p < .05. The data indicated no statistically significant differences between MBSR and non-MBSR participants, regarding perceptions of stress (PSS-4), self-compassion (SCS-SF), and eight of the nine coping strategies (CERQ-S), with the exception being that MBSR participants experienced reduced Self-Blame (p < 0.007). Conclusions find that policies and practices aimed at supporting the three aspects of self-compassion offer one possible avenue to reducing teacher stress and maladaptive thinking strategies, and thereby increasing job satisfaction, for teachers working in a foreign country.

An engaging education attends to the subjective quality of students’ perceptions and experiences within learning and school life: It converges on whether, how, and why students meaning-make and belong within the school; and focuses on the conditions for their attachment, participation, and commitment within school programmes, practices, policies, and people. Three main questions guided this two-phase, mixed-methods study: 1) What makes international schools engaging places for students? 2) What meanings do students attach to key areas of their day-to-day experiences within the international school in Hong Kong? 3) How might re-imagining student engagement through a cosmopolitan lens lead to clearer understandings of students’ experiences within the international school? In Phase 1, an achieved sample of 729 senior secondary students at 9 purposively selected schools were surveyed using a mainly Likert scale questionnaire: to describe their socio-demographics; to examine the relationships between their socio-demographics, attitudinal features, and schooling experiences, as measured by the researcher-designed Experience of International School – Revised (EIS-R) scale; and to cluster using their socio-demographics and attitudinal profiles. Building on the tripartite cluster solution, Phase 2 used observations and interviews with 30 purposively sampled teacher-leaders and 34 students, from across the three clusters, to investigate how the “institutional habitus” (Thomas, 2002) the students encountered at two international schools shaped their experiences of and engagement within the contexts of school culture, community, curriculum, and co-curriculum. A two-stage process of thematic content analysis revealed two super ordinate themes: 1) race/ethnic, linguistic, and nationality identities intersected to shape and challenge patterns of relationships amongst students (and between students/families) and the school to both include and exclude; and 2) the institutional contexts supported and constrained students’ sense of belonging therein. Overall, seen through a cosmopolitan lens the study implications are discussed as three lessons to achieve a better fit between students and the international school: 1) Attend to the school’s living and learning environment; 2) Take a cosmopolitan turn to school for cosmopolitan subjectivity; and 3) Adopt a student engagement-driven approach to improve and reform school policy, administration, and practice.

An engaging education attends to the subjective quality of students’ perceptions and experiences within learning and school life: It converges on whether, how, and why students meaning-make and belong within the school; and focuses on the conditions for their attachment, participation, and commitment within school programmes, practices, policies, and people. Three main questions guided this two-phase, mixed-methods study: 1) What makes international schools engaging places for students? 2) What meanings do students attach to key areas of their day-to-day experiences within the international school in Hong Kong? 3) How might re-imagining student engagement through a cosmopolitan lens lead to clearer understandings of students’ experiences within the international school? In Phase 1, an achieved sample of 729 senior secondary students at 9 purposively selected schools were surveyed using a mainly Likert scale questionnaire: to describe their socio-demographics; to examine the relationships between their socio-demographics, attitudinal features, and schooling experiences, as measured by the researcher-designed Experience of International School – Revised (EIS-R) scale; and to cluster using their socio-demographics and attitudinal profiles. Building on the tripartite cluster solution, Phase 2 used observations and interviews with 30 purposively sampled teacher-leaders and 34 students, from across the three clusters, to investigate how the “institutional habitus” (Thomas, 2002) the students encountered at two international schools shaped their experiences of and engagement within the contexts of school culture, community, curriculum, and co-curriculum. A two-stage process of thematic content analysis revealed two super ordinate themes: 1) race/ethnic, linguistic, and nationality identities intersected to shape and challenge patterns of relationships amongst students (and between students/families) and the school to both include and exclude; and 2) the institutional contexts supported and constrained students’ sense of belonging therein. Overall, seen through a cosmopolitan lens the study implications are discussed as three lessons to achieve a better fit between students and the international school: 1) Attend to the school’s living and learning environment; 2) Take a cosmopolitan turn to school for cosmopolitan subjectivity; and 3) Adopt a student engagement-driven approach to improve and reform school policy, administration, and practice.

The purpose of this study is to investigate if cultural backgrounds affect how staff from Scandinavian international schools view school development. The study is based on the alternative hypothesis that cultural backgrounds affect school development. A survey was sent to seven Scandinavian international schools with questions designed to detect the views respondents have on school development based on the two most prominent school development perspectives; school improvement and school effectiveness. I investigated and analyzed respondents’ views about their own development work at their school today and what they would like it to look like. In addition, I examined what processes and standards they considered important when engaged in school development work. Also, I wanted to see if there were any differences in views depending on where the respondents had had their higher education, were born, or if years spent in Scandinavia had influenced their views. The results indicated that it is not statistically likely that respondents’ cultural backgrounds affect their views on school development. There could be many reasons for this outcome but since these have not been studied, I can only speculate. One reason could be that the majority of the respondents have spent more than ten years in Scandinavia which might have homogenized the respondents’ views on school development.  Another reason could be that the majority of the respondents come or have had their higher education in either an English speaking country or in Scandinavia.

This dissertation is a critical ethnography of teachers working abroad in an American/International school (ASC/pseudonym) located in the People’s Republic of China. The study focuses on the teacher abroad identity process of EC-12 teachers who moved from their country of origin to work in the PRC from 2008 to 2011. The three-year study serves as a snapshot of the formation of the teacher abroad identity. The theoretical framework include theories of identity in figured worlds (Holland et al., 1998), symbolic capital (Bourdieu, 1991), and language as mediator that served to answer three questions: 1) How does a teacher’s biography relate to the experience of working in an American/International school in China? 2) How does a first-time teacher at ASC recreate and negotiate her/his personal and professional self understandings? 3) What role does language play in the making of the teacher abroad identity at ASC? The study follows an interpretivist approach to explain, understand, and unveil the figured world of teaching abroad from the perspective of the participants’ and data analysis by the researcher. Data includes participant observation, interviews, observations, and field notes collected while closely following four teachers who portrayed the making of the teacher abroad identity. The researcher became a teacher abroad at the same school to fully immerse herself in participant observation. The inclusion of document analysis, interviews, and field notes, serve as validation and triangulation of the process. A reflexive approach to data analysis was followed at all times for trustworthiness of the study. Findings suggest that teaching abroad is a complex figurative world. Teacher abroad identity is created at the intersection of the social, personal, emotional, professional, and linguistic spaces. A major finding reveals that individuals who are hired overseas and teach abroad for the first time have to learn new ways to cope with unexpected landscapes brought by living in new country, and by teaching students from a plurality of nationalities, languages, and races. Teachers experience mostly a transformation at the personal level, but the transcendence at the professional level in the classroom is limited. / text

Thesis (D. Ed. Min.)--Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2006. / Abstract. Includes prospectus. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 308-319).

Thesis (D.Ed.Min.)--Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2006. / Includes prospectus. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 308-319).

Aim: The purpose of this study was to explore and describe the implementation of sensory integration interventions by occupational therapists in international schools. It gives insight into the conditions for the implementation of sensory integration, outlining some of the challenges and benefits faced by the occupational therapists working in international schools. Method: A descriptive qualitative design was used to collect data using a digital survey composed of both open-ended and multiple-choice questions. Seven occupational therapists working in international schools in different countries completed the survey. The data was analyzed using a content analysis.  Results: Results reveal that the conditions for implementing sensory integration in the different schools vary. The aim are, however, similar; to enable participation and engagement of the student in the school. The challenges were grouped under four subcategories: school context, collaboration, cultural backgrounds and legal framework and policies. Implementing sensory integration was regarded as being beneficial for the schools, teachers, and students. The international schools were also generally regarded as being supportive to the implementation of sensory integration.  Conclusion:  By implementing sensory integration interventions, the occupational therapists address the person and environment (social and cultural) to enable the student’s occupational engagement. This in turn leads to benefits, identified by the occupational therapists, for the student, teachers, and school. The physical, social, cultural, and institutional environment of the schools vary and can limit the types of sensory integration interventions provided, leading to challenges identified by the occupational therapists.