International schooling has expanded rapidly in recent years, with the number of students educated in international schools projected to reach seven million by 2023. Drawing on the author's extensive experience conducting research in international schools across the globe, this book critically analyses the concept of international schooling and its rapid growth in the 21st century. It identifies the forces driving this trend, asking to what extent this is an enterprise that meets the needs of a global elite, and examining its relationship to national systems of education. The author demonstrates how wider social inequalities around socio-economic difference, ethnicity, 'race' and gender are reproduced through international schooling and examines the theory that 'international' curricula are in fact Western curricula. Presenting research from diverse countries including Russia, Malaysia, the UAE, the UK, and Bahrain, the author explores ways in which international schools adapt to local cultural contexts and examines the views of parents, students, teachers and school leaders towards the education that they provide.

A teacher's guide to international schools

The number of English-medium international schools that deliver their curriculum wholly or partly in the English language reportedly reached 6,000 in January 2012. It is anticipated this number will rise to over 11,000 schools by 2022, employing over 500,000 English-speaking teachers. The number of children being taught in these schools reportedly reached 3 million in March 2012. Alongside this phenomenal growth the landscape of international schooling has changed fundamentally, moving away from largely serving the children of the expat and globally mobile business community and Embassies, towards serving the ‘local’ children of the wealthy and emerging middle-class. This has been reflected in the shift away from non-profit ownership by the school community towards ownership by for-profit companies and proprietors. In this book, Tristan Bunnell explores the changing landscape of international schooling and discusses the implications of these changes, both in terms of theoretically conceptualizing the scale, nature and purpose of the field, and in terms of practically serving and administering the growing industry that international education is becoming. The Changing Landscape of International Schooling will be worthwhile reading for researchers, academics and students of international schooling, leaders and teachers in international schools, and those interested in the broader development of international education.

This book looks to ask critical questions about the driving force behind the growth of 'International Education' and 'international Schooling' and offers an original 'demand-supply' framework for understanding this expansion.

The well-known international contributors to this book move beyond simply describing the issues, and instead suggest ways in which the complex and often contradictory tensions within the world of international schooling and its global contexts must be examined critically.

The arena of International Schooling is growing rapidly and changing in nature. The number of schools delivering a curriculum wholly or partly in English outside an English-speaking nation reached 12,000 in 2020. China and the Middle East is the emerging centre of activity, and local parents are the main customers.

This book looks to ask critical questions about the driving force behind the growth of 'International Education' and 'international Schooling' and offers an original 'demand-supply' framework for understanding this expansion.