Akın Metli—Bilkent University (Turkey)
This study investigates how the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (DP) core components—creativity, activity, service (CAS), theory of knowledge (TOK), and extended essay (EE)—foster three pillars of international-mindedness: multilingualism, intercultural understanding and global engagement. It uses mixed methods to explore perceptions of international-mindedness (IM) within two continuum schools in Istanbul, Turkey: a national school and an international school. Using a conceptual framework developed by Singh and Qi (2013), the qualitative phase revealed that CAS supports global engagement, while TOK fosters intercultural understanding and global knowledge. EE provides opportunities for fostering multilingualism, intercultural understanding and global engagement through students’ explorations of linguistic, cross-cultural and global issues. The qualitative analysis indicated that PYP is perceived as an inquiry-based programme that fosters the development of IM through the PYP exhibition, school-wide community service projects and cultural explorations in language classes. MYP is perceived to foster the development of IM through the personal project, approaches to teaching and learning and the discussion of issues of global significance. The quantitative phase of the study showed that in both schools there was no significant difference between students’ pre- and post-levels of intercultural understanding and global engagement after one year spent in DP.
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