21st century international mindedness: An explorative study of its conceptualisation and assessment

TLDR: The International Baccalaureate (IB) defines international mindedness as "the acceptance of non-western cultures on all three IB programs" as discussed by the authors, and the IB's mission is to "define internationalmindedness in increasingly clear terms".

Abstract: This report provides an account of the conceptualisation of international mindedness and existing instruments for assessing it This report is structured so that throughout, clear coherent links are made to IB documents and 'big' IB ideas are drawn together It describes and captures the evolution of the concept of 'international mindedness' from earlier meanings The report works towards the development of a conception of 'international mindedness' that is relevant to current situations of 21st century education This report contains a range of resource materials for use in workshopping the concept of "21st century international mindedness" The conceptualisation of international mindedness as a basis for internationalising education is a problem For instance, in Towards a continuum of international education the International Baccalaureate (IB) recognises that a key challenge to its programmes is that they "have grown from a western humanist tradition, [and now] the influence of non-western cultures on all three programmes is becoming increasingly important" (G1, 2008 p2) The IB came out of a western humanist philosophy The IB now articulates a particular sensitivity to the risks associated with partisan perspectives and strives to seek a broad range of views It is the issue of broadening the range of knowledge that goes into constituting international mindedness, which is emphasised in this report, providing resources for critical reflection on the constraints and possibilities for doing so In this way, the exploratory study reported here contributes to the IB's mission to "define international mindedness in increasingly clear terms, and the struggle to move closer to that ideal in practice"