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Transnationalism and the International Baccalaureate Learner Profile

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Abstract

This article examines the ways in which the International Baccalaureate’s Learner Profile is interpreted and enacted in three different national settings. Using the data collected from a comparative study of the Learner Profile in nine International Baccalaureate schools in India, Hong Kong, and Australia, the article problematizes the widely held belief that understandings of the key attributes of the Learner Profile are nationally inflected. It suggests, instead, that these schools relate to their localities in a range of complex and multifaceted ways, and that the differences between individual schools within the same country are often more significant than differences between nations when it comes to putting the Learner Profile into practice. The article introduces the idea of “transnational learning spaces” to describe a range of common features across these schools, including highly culturally diverse and globally mobile student populations and a shared disposition toward cosmopolitanism.

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Correspondence to John Quay.

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Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

We acknowledge the support and contributions of the schools involved in this study—their administrators, teachers, and students—as well as staff at the IBO regional office in Singapore, who initiated and funded the study.

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Rizvi, F., Savage, G.C., Quay, J. et al. Transnationalism and the International Baccalaureate Learner Profile. Prospects 48, 157–174 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11125-019-09447-z

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