Jessica Jacovidis, Ross Anderson, Paul Beach and Kristine Chadwick—Inflexion
Given the recent increase in attention around social and emotional learning in education, the International Baccalaureate (IB) commissioned three policy papers focused on key interrelated social and emotional learning topics that are closely aligned to the IB’s work: academic resilience, growth mindset and metacognition. This policy paper presents findings from a wide range of literature on growth mindset in primary and secondary education. Students with a growth mindset believe that intelligence and abilities are malleable and can be developed with effort. Students’ beliefs about intelligence can lead them to interpret day-to-day classroom experiences as either threatening and indicative of a deficit in ability (fixed mindset) or exciting and indicative of a potential for development (growth mindset). Part one of this policy paper describes key insights from research on growth mindset. Part two presents promising practices for improving students’ growth mindset beliefs and thinking. Lastly, part three provides recommendations for IB stakeholders that are meant to strengthen and reinforce the potential of IB programmes to facilitate student growth mindset thinking across contexts.
