IB Research Notes

Information for the IB research community Volume 2, Issue 2 April 2002

Welcome to IB Research Notes, Volume 2 Issue 2. In this issue This issue’s feature article is by Simon Murray. The Research Notes article considers the global economy from a Theory of Knowledge perspective. Mr Samir Chammaa, head of Ibn ~ Call for Articles Khuldoon School, and Mr Mike Clarke, subject area Feature Article: manager at IBCA, provide responses to the article. The Value(s) of Also included in this issue is an article outlining a Theory of Knowledge longitudinal study relating to Swedish IB Diploma in a Global Economy holders, and details of the research committee and its Simon Murray functions. Study Report: The research unit, in conjunction with the research Longitudinal studies in the committee, is actively developing a research strategy IBO: Swedish Diploma for e-learning as it relates to international schools Holders Research Study and international contexts. We are looking for 1971–1993 individuals and groups who may wish to become Annika Andrae Thelin et al involved in e-learning activities or who may wish to The Research Committee share their work through IB Research Notes. Please contact [email protected] if you would like further Research Noticeboard information. ~ Interpreting International We would also be interested in hearing from prospective Education conference authors of articles related to any field of international ~ Journal of Research in education. They can e-mail [email protected] to discuss their International Education ideas and suggestions for articles. ~ Research committee IB teachers can access IB Research Notes via news and ~ Research literature information on the online curriculum centre. To widen access to our research information, IB Research Notes ~ Research conference will also soon appear on the IBO public web pages, but ~ IBO public web site until such time as this occurs it can also be accessed at ~ Online curriculum centre www.bath.ac.uk/Departments/Education/CEIC/ibru/ index.html.

IB Research Notes is published four times a year and is a joint publication of the International Baccalaureate Research Unit (IBRU) and the International Baccalaureate Curriculum and Assessment Centre (IBCA). Contact details: IBRU Department of Education University of Bath a Bath GB BA2 7AY Fax: +44 1225 323 277 E-mail: [email protected] © IBO 2002

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Research Notes This publication is intended to communicate the outcomes of small-scale pieces of inquiry and developments relevant to the IB community. The reason for publishing in this electronic form is that we wish to provide timely access to ideas arising from inquiries of current significance to the IB community. The general aims of the publication are to:

1. provide a forum for the publication of research related to the IB and international education

2. present research related to the IB to its community via the online curriculum centre

3. establish a forum for exchange of IB research-related comments and information, by providing a feedback column

4. provide the wider IB community with an outline of some of the current research being undertaken on IB-related topics

5. provide information about recent research articles relevant to the three IB programmes.

Call for Articles We encourage anyone involved in any form of research within or on the IB programmes (PYP, MYP, Diploma Programme or all three) to contact IBRU at [email protected] if they wish to submit an article or report for publication. We are particularly interested in hearing from teacher researchers within the IB community. Please note that the IBO reserves the right to edit articles, in consultation with the authors, for length and style (articles should not exceed 2500 words). Should you wish to comment critically on articles published in IB Research Notes, please e-mail [email protected].

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Feature Article

Simon Murray is Head of Sixth Form at St George’s British International School, Rome. He has taught English and Theory of Knowledge (TOK) in schools in Spain and Italy, has been a Middle Years Programme approaches to learning coordinator and Diploma Programme coordinator, and was an associate lecturer in arts and social science for The Open University in Europe. He is also a TOK assessor, and is currently researching the impact of globalization on issues of national and international education.

The Value(s) of Theory of Knowledge in a Global Economy

Simon Murray

Abstract

This article considers globalization as primarily a problem of knowledge. It goes on to suggest that the increasing commodification of knowledge is a central part of the operation of globalization that, when joined to an apparent liquidation of the difference between politics and economics, raises issues about a possible economics of epistemology. Finally, it considers the status of the national and the international in the context of the global, and tries to outline possible connections between Theory of Knowledge (TOK) and concepts of internationalism.

Introduction

Given the wealth, perhaps the surplus wealth, of comment on globalization, a further attempt to understand this phenomenon needs to justify itself. This justification is made easier by the fact that, as far as I am aware, education in general is grossly under-represented in the most influential debates, school education rarely mentioned, and international school education apparently a species currently too exotic to classify. Yet it is the provocation offered by globalization to the teaching of Theory of Knowledge, and its response, that might help establish an agenda which currently seems absent in thinking about the future of education in a global economy. And if I have already extended the apparent scope of this article, that extension is legitimated in part by the special role allocated to the teaching of TOK within the Diploma Programme. TOK is the proper place and space for the Diploma Programme to consider itself. And if globalization in turn asks TOK to reflect upon itself as a discipline and consider its own educational value, then the Diploma Programme is itself implied: the mirror of globalization reflects many faces, and at least the six of the current hexagon.

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What is Globalization?

Knowledge is and will be produced in order to be sold, it is and will be consumed in order to be valorized in a new production: in both cases, the goal is exchange. Knowledge ceases to be an end in itself.1

These remarks, made during Lyotard’s 1979 report on knowledge for the government of Quebec, probably exceeded his original brief, which was to assess “the condition of knowledge in the most highly developed countries”.2 But, with remarkable prescience, he described our own times very well indeed, I think. Twenty years before the term became fashionable and ultimately indispensable, Lyotard identified the phenomenon that we have come to know as globalization. That he diagnosed it as essentially a problem of knowledge and not just an issue of sovereignty, market economies, communication technology, time–space compression or social justice (though it is certainly all of these and more), makes it particularly relevant to TOK. Thus, we need to examine the impact of globalization as it ramifies across a variety of ways of knowing, itself a wide-ranging research project.3 More pressingly though, we need to assess where it leaves TOK as an educational discipline, and ask ourselves what is its value and what are its values. If knowledge has ceased or is ceasing to be an end in itself, and is now bound increasingly within a process of commodification, then our students need to reflect on this, and we as teachers need to work out how we cope with this situation.4 Recently, a limited debate has been conducted within the IBO about the significance of globalization.5 Thus, Gautam Sen raises the central question that “[b]y omitting a closer scrutiny of globalisation itself, the [strategic] plan seemed to regard it as a process which the IBO could see itself supporting unproblematically”.6 The subsequent exchange between Sen and Walker, albeit conducted in a limited context, did little to address this question, largely because both seemed to conceive of the globalization debate as working from competing social agendas rather than emerging from the more fundamental problem of knowledge identified by Lyotard. Now, while conceptualizations of globalization are remarkably diverse, they do tend to fall into two broad categories. The first of these is skeptical about presenting the reality of globalization as a genuinely new phenomenon, while the other, more radical, position asserts the need to recognize that the world order, and the relationships that structure it, have fundamentally changed. Then again, these classifications themselves break down, especially on the side of the radicals, according to how urgent is the perceived need to act on this recognition of change, and according to what they recognize as the locus of this change. One person responsible for making the term globalization fashionable and indispensable is Anthony Giddens.7 In the Reith Lecture series Runaway World,8 broadcast from around and to the world by the BBC World Service in 1999, Giddens took it as given that we are all in the grip of globalization. His themed lectures on risk, tradition, the family and democracy were notable for the cautious optimism characteristic of the so-called “tranformationalist” model. At the time I was surprised by the comparatively small role played by education in his thinking, especially education in an international, globalized context. (I want to come back to the appropriateness of these apparent synonyms later.) However, it was interesting that a year later George Walker stated: “The transformationalist model of globalization seems the one most likely to describe the future of education.”9 Walker’s gloss on this model is that “It insists that global markets are not replacing nations, but are transforming the relationships within and between them that we have lived with for so long.”10 Inasmuch as the radicals tend to differ in degree rather than on principle, I would like to adopt an alternative radical

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position, drawing on the work of Lyotard and others, and set this against that of Giddens and Walker. Rather than adopt the cautious optimism inherent in the tranformationalist model, I want to argue that emerging globalization represents a potent threat to the modes of thinking essential to international education.

TOK and Globalization

TOK occupies the centre of the Diploma Programme curriculum model, but it is possible to imagine another scenario where its centrality is not emphasized at all, and yet another where it disappears altogether. The reason for such thoughts is that I feel that if TOK is to retain a genuinely philosophical role in international education, then it will have to become simultaneously very much more politically pronounced in character, even if this is only because it has clung onto what I take to be its core values. In one of his most subtle and flexible conceptualizations, Giddens refers to the “shell institutions” that globalization tends to expose. He defines these as:

institutions that appear the same as they used to be from the outside, and carry the same names, but inside have become quite different…The outer shell remains, but they have changed…They are institutions that have become inadequate to the tasks they are called upon to perform.11

Is TOK just such an institution? If it is not, how is it to retain its more substantial contribution to international education in the face of globalization? I want to try to address these questions, in the first instance by paraphrasing a story Lyotard recounts about the foundation of the University of Berlin. At the time of the University’s creation, two competing foundation documents were presented by Fichte and Schleiermacher. Fichte, author of both The Science of Knowledge and An Address to the German Nation, conceived of the University as ultimately an emanation of national character, while Schleiermacher presented a more liberal version descriptive of the type of University we have come to know, and which his blueprint helped to create. Adjudicating between them, Wilhelm von Humboldt defended his choice against Fichte by claiming that “the institution lives and continually renews itself on its own, with no constraint or determined goal whatsoever”.12 High-handed and decadent as such an opinion might sound today, these essentially Socratic sentiments seem to me currently to be in need of defence, especially if we imagine von Humboldt describing an institution such as TOK in a global economy. It is significant that von Humboldt’s defence of “The University” is coincidental with, if not wholly inspired by, the perceived contradiction of Fichte’s nationalism. And it is at this point that we might begin to see the intersection of apparently different debates, as the integrity of critical thinking becomes a mainstay of internationalism. Now, globalization is often poised against the concept of the nation, sovereignty in various guises being the prize. Interestingly, however, it has been argued that contemporary interference in peripheral national concerns, which in a global economy may include education, is itself a symptom of globalization. Speaking of government power, the trade-off for prior sovereignty, Susan Strange argues of governments that:

[t]heir deficiency is not made good by greater activity in marginal matters, matters that are optional for society, and which are not absolutely necessary for the functioning of the market and the maintenance of social order. Trivializing government does not make its authority more respected; often, the contrary is true.13

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The power to control the margin of education has had occasion to manifest itself in the emphasis given to national curriculums, especially in the humanities, where, for example, national history can seem to function as institutionalized nostalgia in the search for an identity. That said, inasmuch as it seems (superficially at least) to work against narrowly nationalistic concerns, globalization tends to offer interesting possibilities for institutions attempting to work towards horizons larger than mere power. Therefore globalization, if not its equivalent, appears to occupy similar ground to internationalism. At least from a technological standpoint, globalization and internationalism do have an increasingly shared dependence on the need to communicate with as much transparency, reach and speed as is possible. And it is certainly the case that cultural traffic across the world does facilitate a type of understanding that until even quite recently was unavailable. Furthermore, obligations to pay attention to a world larger than that in which you immediately live, and to recognize your connectedness to it, have been further emphasized as globalization has taken hold. Walker criticizes Sen for his grudging acceptance of the “benign spin-offs” of globalization, instead of appreciating the tranformationalist point of view “that many institutions, customs, and languages (that is, cultures) could be significantly strengthened”.14 But I think that Sen is entitled to be grudging, when Giddens, the doyen of tranformationalism, offers as examples of “reverse colonization” the “latinisation of Los Angeles, the emergence of a globally orientated high-tech sector in India and the selling of Brazilian television programmes to Portugal”.15 These examples seem much more significant of a perceived need to buy into a global power structure in the service of post-industrial capitalism. And to Walker’s definition of cultures we might at least add traditions of knowing more extensive and older than these examples. The implicit values of globalization and internationalism are not the same, and in the attempt to foster the latter I feel that there is a real danger of merely embracing the former. Embracing globalization, which Giddens, despite his caution, far too often finesses as cosmopolitanism, finally only manages to reinstate the very singularity that it seems to work against. As he has remarked in more recent work on globalization: “The task, surely, in the absence of alternatives, is to keep the current system going and improve it.”16 It is the perceived absence of alternatives that is most striking here, the inability to question that seems to me indicative of so-called “turbo-capitalism’s” power to evacuate alternative value systems well beyond its overseeing the demise of socialist opposition. Effectively, globalization (what Manuel Castells calls “The Automaton”17) merely reinstates nationalism by another name, but this time without any differences. This gains credence if it is in fact true that, of the leading 100 economies in the world, almost half are companies rather than countries. Under these conditions, values in the plural become value in the singular, the value of exchange-use. This is how globalization will value knowledge. Pushed to its logical limits, the impact on education generally is potentially disastrous. In Lyotard’s vision,

[t]he question (overt or implied) now asked by the professionalist student…is no longer is it true but “What use is it?” In the context of the mercantilization of knowledge, more often this question is equivalent to: “Is it saleable?” And in the context of power growth: “Is it efficient?” Having competence in a performance-related skill does indeed seem saleable in the conditions described above, and it is efficient by definition. What no longer makes the grade is competence as defined by other criteria true/false, just/unjust, etc. – and, of course, low performativity in general.18

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And just in case you think Lyotard was being alarmist in 1979, Mary Tanner, managing director at the investment house Lehman Brothers, has this to say: “[education] is a local industry that over time will become a global business.”19 If anything like this is accurate, it is not just that individual disciplines will have to look to themselves regarding their “performativity”, but that our relationship to knowledge itself has changed decisively. What is the nature of this change and how has it occurred? My immediate and most honest response is that I am not sure, and space does not permit me to describe here what I hope to outline in future work. I would certainly recommend both Giddens and Lyotard in their different ways as they trace this narrative of change. But they do overlap in constructing a recent history that sees the Enlightenment project (Kant’s ambition to set knowledge on the true path of science) become industrial, and then post-industrial, capitalism. Lyotard is justly famous for his analysis of postmodernity’s “indifference” to the older “grand narratives” that have historically legitimated knowledge and its pursuit. In this respect, of the three most influential narratives to emerge from post- Enlightenment thinking, namely science, liberalism and Marxism, the first two appear to be cornerstones of contemporary globalization. But most tellingly for education, Lyotard suggests that:

... learning will have to continue to supply the social system with the skills fulfilling society’s own needs, which center on maintaining its internal cohesion. Previously, this task entailed the formation and dissemination of a general model of life, most often legitimated by the emancipation narrative. In the context of deligitimation, institutions…of learning are called upon to create skills, and no longer ideals.20

A question worth thinking about is how often we legitimate TOK and indeed the whole Diploma Programme by the skills it helps to develop, and the associated “performativity” we might imply in assessing such skills. On globalization more recently, Bjorn Hettne echoes Lyotard:

An economic system presupposes some kind of social order. A social order is a coherent system of rules which is accepted by the actors constituting the system. The concept can contain both coercive and consensual dimensions. The market system of exchange is itself not an order, but is confined by a particular order that expresses its underlying value system, or normative content. Therefore, market systems differ to the extent that their underlying social orders differ. If as is the case in the post-communist world, there is a transition between different orders, the market can only reflect the confusion and turbulence of this tradition, but it will not itself create order.21

At this stage it might well be worth reinvoking John Dewey’s distinction between “education as a function of society” and “society as a function of education”.22 Such conceptual polarities continue to be apt, given the contemporary pressure to prioritize education’s social utility. In the current politics of knowledge, globalization, despite or perhaps because of its apparent absorbency, involves singular definition—good knowledge is that which is commodifiable. Politics, liquidated to economics, becomes an economy of knowledge or, as we have it now, knowledge economies. I would hope that it is not just as TOK teachers that we might recognize this reductive fallacy, and insist that it must remain an open question as to whether or not this is good. I hope that it might also remind us that as we continue to witness the co-opting of the national into the global, that between the dry lands of each lie the open waters of philosophy, as it were, international waters.

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The value of philosophy, to recall Bertrand Russell, is that the knowledge with which it concerns itself is not “definite”.

Yet, however slight might be the hope of discovering an answer, it is part of the business of philosophy to continue the consideration of such questions, to make us aware of their importance, to examine all the approaches to them, and to keep alive that speculative interest in the universe which is apt to be killed by confining ourselves to definitely ascertainable knowledge.23

Internationalism, like philosophy, is a process, rather than something available to scientific definition, and because it primarily concerns people, sustains itself through critical reflection. Internationalism may also imply social objectives, it may require skills, and it may indeed overlap with globalization, but as an ongoing concern of TOK, it is a process of knowing that, while examining definitions, must continue to exceed them. Thus, while in some people’s minds there may well be a broad consensus about perceived normative ideals that TOK and the Diploma Programme are in pursuit of, it may well be the capacity to interrogate knowledge claims that will allow these ideals to emerge as realities. For example, if the furtherance of democracy is one of these ideals, then it will be a community of critical thinkers, who can weigh how this concept has evolved and is currently configured and used, that might guarantee its practice. Writing in the wake of the attacks in America, George Walker spoke of the need for teachers in international schools “who unsettle traditions, who welcome tensions [and] who demand sacrifices”.24 If Chris Patten is to be believed when he states that in those bombings in America we witnessed “the dark side of globalization”,25 then Walker’s agenda is an urgent one. While TOK teaching can have, in my view, no direct opinion on such events, critical thinking, embedded in the Diploma Programme and implicit in it, may help international education play its part in avoiding their repetition and minimizing their aftermath. After all,

[t]here is nothing that does not need to be studied in class, including, of course, the oddity of studying in class. Everything and everybody, the more randomly selected the better, has to be subjected to questions, especially dumb questions, and to the elicitation of answers. The point is that nothing must be taken for other than “strange”, nothing must be left alone …. And if in fact some things cannot be taught, then that itself should be the subject of inquiry.26

The TOK guide states that it is in the nature of the subject to challenge “students and teachers to reflect critically on diverse ways of knowing and areas of knowledge, and to consider the role knowledge plays in a global society.”27 Is it too dumb to ask whether this present challenge is currently being met?

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Notes

1 Lyotard, JF. 1984. The Postmodern Condition. Manchester University Press, Manchester, 5. 2 Ibid, xxiii. 3 This article only really manages to outline what I hope to address in more detail in ongoing work. 4 Of course, this potentially begs the question in favour of a particular understanding of what TOK involves. 5 This debate was carried out on the IBO public website and can be accessed at www.ibo.org. 6 Sen, G. 2001. “Can the IB strengthen the local, globally?” www.ibo.org/ibo/index.cfm/en/ibo/ibworld 7 Giddens, and a group emerging from the London School of Economics, in particular David Held, currently lead the field. 8 Giddens, A. 1999. Runaway World. http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/events/reith_99. 9 Walker, G. 2001. Globalization and Education. www.genevanews.com/gnir/html/Current/E1Walker.html. 10 Ibid. 11 Giddens, A. 1999. Runaway World. http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/events/reith_99, 5. 12 Lyotard, JF. 1984. The Postmodern Condition. Manchester University Press, Manchester, 32. 13 Strange, S. 1996. The Retreat of the State: The Diffusion of Power in the World Economy. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2. 14 Walker, G. 2001. Reply to Sen, G. www.ibo.org. 15 Giddens, A. 1999. Runaway World. Profile Books, London, 16. 16 Hutton, W, Giddens, A et al. 2000. On The Edge. Jonathan Cape, London, 216. 17 Castells, M. 2000. Information Technology and Global Capitalism. Jonathan Cape, London, 67. 18 Lyotard, JF. 1984. The Postmodern Condition. Manchester University Press, Manchester, 51. 19 Quoted in Vine, P. 1997. “To Market to Market…” The Nation, September 8/15, 11–17. 20 Lyotard, JF. 1984. The Postmodern Condition. Manchester University Press, Manchester, 48. 21 Hettne, B. 1998. “The Double Movement: Global Market versus Regionalism”, in Cox, RW (ed.), The New Realism: Perspectives on Multilateralism and World Order, United Nations University Press, Tokyo, 55. 22 Cited in Burke, K. 1961. Attitudes Toward History. Beacon Press, Boston, 31–32. 23 Russell, B. 1967. The Problems of Philosophy. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 90–91. 24 Walker, G. 2001. Learning to Live with Others. IBO, Geneva. 25 Chris Patten, EU Commissioner on External Affairs, interviewed in The Guardian, 9 February 2002. 26 Poirier, R. 1985. The Performing Self. Cited by Lentricchia, F. 1985. Criticism and Social Change. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, vi. 27 International Baccalaureate Organization. 1999. Theory of Knowledge. IBO, Geneva, 3.

Readers are invited to express their own views on this article, and the related responses, via the research conference on the online curriculum centre (http://online.ibo.org). Within the research conference there is a forum entitled research notes, and the ensuing discussions will be conducted on that site. A summary of the comments received on the forum will appear in future issues of IB Research Notes.

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Response to Simon Murray’s article: 1 Mr S Chammaa, head of Ibn Khuldoon School

The institution of education is not and should not be considered as an entity independent from its social environment, with its cultural, political, economic and other dimensions. Already, in the first years of the twentieth century, Dewey placed the institution of education within a broader system, where subsystems interact and go through a continuous process of re-adaptation. Dewey’s concern at that time was to examine the educational situation in light of the profound changes that had affected the world during the previous century, with particular emphasis on the industrial revolution and the rise of the nation states. He observed that the institution of education had not adapted to the change in its organizational structure, causing problems to appear. Today we can raise the same question, and I am afraid we will find that the organizational structure of the educational system is still almost unchanged, despite the challenges of technological developments, the communication revolution and the emergence of the global economy. As for the term “globalization”, it might be a new word, but it describes in reality an old phenomenon: different nations and cultures each have their own agendas and attempt to defend them. In general, this takes the form of a competition on the grounds of military and economic power, and results in the fact that stronger nations desire to impose their social agendas on weaker nations, and succeed. From that perspective, the Roman Empire and the British Empire were no different from the contemporary hegemony of the United States over international organizations, such as the World Bank and the World Trade Organization, and the rest of the world’s economies: Karl Marx’s dream of creating a global economy shaped by the working class, beyond nationalism and religion, is not structurally different from a global economy shaped by transnational corporations…. But the global economy is a reality, and I share George Walker’s view that “global markets are not replacing nations, but transforming the relationships between them”, and I find more compelling reasons to conceive globalization as “a debate of competing social agendas between cultures”, rather than an ambiguous “problem of knowledge”. However, globalization still offers a major provocation to education, and to TOK in particular, as TOK can play a crucial role in preparing students to participate effectively in the debate. Simply stated, TOK aims to equip students with the ability to think in a critical manner and draw conclusions based on facts, following effective patterns of thinking. But as in all areas of human activity, this beautiful construct cannot but have a “politically pronounced character”, an agenda. The pertinent question is therefore what agenda we believe TOK should carry—in addition to its stated general goals—in order to promote cooperation rather than confrontation in the interaction between cultures. The question is about how we can bring such agenda to reality, in a world where nation-states are and will continue to be, at least in the foreseeable future, the main providers of education in their respective states, using it to support their own conflicting social agendas, and where military and economic might—not philosophy and thinking—continue to be the measure.

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Response to Simon Murray’s article: 2 Mike Clarke, subject area manager, International Baccalaureate Organization

Simon Murray’s paper deals with big ideas, which have their own excitement. The piece undoubtedly raises some fascinating and important questions. But how successfully does it answer them? The phrase “Knowledge ceases to be an end in itself”, quoted from Lyotard’s 1979 report, is presented as though it were a new discovery, caused by globalization. Surely, though, knowledge as an end in itself has been a questionable idea for some hundreds of years, at least. Arguably, knowledge was once equated with godliness, the preserve of the priestly class. Its connection with power, and hence wealth, dates back to Francis Bacon (as an aside, his phrase “knowledge is power”, now hijacked by a vast range of interests, produced 96,000 hits in a search of www.google.com on 3 April 2002). It would be surprising, perhaps even worrying, if TOK teachers did not place a high value on knowledge for itself. Not to do so might be described as a “failure of the heart”. By the same token, a lack of recognition of the different aspects of knowledge as the source of status, power or wealth, could be described as “a failure of the head”— a failure whose consequences include a vulnerability to the kind of totalizing vision presented by Lyotard et al. The well-known paradox that the postmodernists’ argument for the impossibility of any overarching narrative, or grand theory, is itself a grand theory, should warn us to treat such arguments with care. The same I think is true of the “radical” concept of globalization and the idea of the commodification of knowledge. The vision of a vast machine homogenizing everyone and everything is just too apocalyptic. It is important to recognize the contradictions and complexities within these processes in order to avoid a self- fulfilling pessimism. For the fact is that unintended and unforeseen consequences continually emerge. Did the military supporters of the Internet imagine that it would be used by so many people for such different purposes? Do those who regard Microsoft and McDonalds as close kin to Mephistopheles really believe that the world is powerless to resist these mighty corporations? If I am critical of Simon Murray’s arguments, it is partly because I find them attractive. I do believe that TOK is important, and that it can be an influence for good, so it is tempting to think that TOK should transform itself in order to “take on” a perceived threat from globalization. However, it seems to me that the case for globalization as a fundamental threat to the nature of knowledge, which TOK must fight in order to survive, has not yet been made. Where are the examples of this supposed process in action? (Will we all be saluting the Microsoft flag and avidly consuming our Big Macs in a few years’ time? Will you?) I would like to see Simon Murray test his thesis on different kinds of knowledge—science, ethics and aesthetics would do for starters—to see how plausible it is in slightly more specific applications. Meanwhile, my view is that TOK, rather than trying to play a heroic David to globalization’s Goliath, should continue to encourage students to reflect critically on diverse ways of knowing and areas of knowledge. The strength of TOK is its commitment to inquiry, not to any particular political alignment.

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Study Report

The Swedish Diploma holders research study came into being following a proposal from Dr Bengt Thelin, who was President of the IBO Council of Foundation from 1996 to 1997. Dr Thelin took an interest in how Diploma holders had succeeded in their subsequent

studies. The report on the study was compiled by Dr Annika Andrae Thelin, Monica Flodman and her personal assistant, Hannele Salminen, in the period 1994–1996.

Longitudinal studies in the IBO: Swedish Diploma Holders Research Study 1971–1993

Annika Andrae Thelin, Monica Flodman and Hannele Salminen

General Background

A progress report on a research project called “IB Diploma Holders Research Study” was prepared by Mr Phil Thomas of the International School of Geneva and published by the IBO in 1987.

The Diploma Programme in Sweden

The Diploma Programme was first introduced in Sweden at Kungsholmen’s Gymnasium in 1977, to serve the diplomatic corps and the business community in Stockholm. As the demand for international education grew, the Diploma Programme was established in other national schools from 1981 onwards, and in January 2002 there was a total of 28 authorized schools in Sweden.

Aims of the Study

The main aims were to find out in which countries Swedish candidates graduating in the period 1971 to 1993 followed their Diploma Programme courses, which subjects they studied, where they graduated from university and which degrees they obtained, their current profession and in which country they lived and worked at the time of the research.

Methodology

For this study, Swedish candidates graduating from all Diploma Programme schools in the years 1971 to 1993 were identified.

Design of the questionnaire sent to candidates The questionnaire contained 19 open questions and two closed questions. The use of open questions was specifically intended to encourage as wide a range of views and opinions as possible. Aside from the demographic questions, there were questions that focused on the length of time spent abroad, where the time was spent, the institutions attended and the courses completed. Information on candidates’ employment and views on their educational background were also sought. Students with a dual nationality were not included in the research.

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Responses There were altogether 96 schools with Swedish Diploma Programme graduates, some with only one or two Swedish candidates per year. Only those schools with three or more successful Swedish candidates, that is 62 schools, were asked for current details of 1289 students. Of the 62 schools, 44 responded and provided 1206 addresses, of which 84% were valid. The difficulty of obtaining valid addresses was to be expected in keeping track of a mobile population. There was a response rate of 40%, which is normal for these types of surveys, but does affect the generalizability of the results.

The questions analysed

The following questions were analysed for the report: ♦ Country where students obtained the Diploma ♦ The reasons for choosing the school that they graduated from ♦ Main categories of university degrees obtained ♦ Where they obtained their university degree ♦ Their current employment status ♦ How valuable they thought their Diploma Programme studies were for university studies, other studies, career, and their future life in general ♦ Whether they would send their own children to a school offering the Diploma Programme. ♦ The advantages and disadvantages of the Diploma Programme, from their personal perspective.

Responses The candidates who responded had completed their studies in 48 countries. 53% of them had chosen the Diploma Programme because their parents had lived or worked abroad, while 40% had opted for the Diploma Programme because they had a genuine interest in studying abroad. Of the respondents, 67% were living in Sweden at that time, but the remainder (33%) were located in 24 other countries. There was a tacit recognition of the value of the Diploma Programme: 83% responded that they would send their children to schools offering the Diploma Programme. Stated advantages of the Diploma Programme included: high quality teaching, encouragement of good study techniques, good preparation for university, the international and global perspective, the global experience, and the positive cooperation between teachers and students. The disadvantages included: all examinations taken during a two-week period, grades dependent on one examination, a relatively small range of subjects (six), problems with university recognition of the qualification and the potential for the development of an isolated international identity.

Conclusion

This brief summary of the report is intended to stimulate discussion about the possibility of further longitudinal studies within the IBO, with a view to recognizing and overcoming some of the difficulties inherent in contacting and collecting data from former students who are dispersed through the many countries of the world. Within this debate, issues related to what we want to know, and how do we want to find it out, are equally important. The full report will be made available in the near future on the IBO research pages, to be found at www.ibo.org.

14 IB Research Notes

The Research Committee

The IBO established a research committee in 1998 to facilitate and coordinate the development of the research focus of the IBO, as outlined in the organization’s strategic plan of 2000.

The research committee is made up of a number of internationally recognized experts from different areas of education: Professor Jeff Thompson, director of international education for the IBO (chair) Professor George Walker, director general of the IBO Dr Helen Drennen, director of academic affairs and regional director designate for the Asia Pacific region Mrs Jan Millikin, visiting fellow, Monash University, Australia Professor Zhou Nan Zhou, acting chief and senior programme specialist in international education, UNESCO regional office for Asia Pacific Dr Robert Sylvester, director of the Sri Lanka Project Mr Raymond Jourdain, formerly head of La Claparède College Mr Samir Chammaa, head of Ibn Khuldoon School, secretary to the Association of Heads of International Schools Mr Roger Brown, research manager, International Baccalaureate research unit. The IBO research committee considers research proposals from individuals and organizations interested in conducting research into various aspects of the Primary Years Programme, Middle Years Programme and Diploma Programme. It meets twice a year to consider these submissions and recognizes those proposals that meet the criteria set down by the committee, which can be found on the IBO research pages at www.ibo.org. The extensive experience of the members of the research committee also provides an excellent forum for discussion on issues related to international education, learning, the IBO and the three programmes. It also allows consideration of the broader philosophical underpinnings of the organization. There is in addition a number of members of the research committee whose expertise is called upon when required. These corresponding members include representatives from regional offices, other educational systems and educational researchers. The research committee welcomes suggestions and comments on the development of a research agenda for the organization. Suggestions and comments can be forwarded to Mr Roger Brown at [email protected].

Research Noticeboard

Interpreting International Education conference

This conference will be held in Geneva from 11–13 September 2002. For further information, visit: www.bath.ac.uk/ceic/geneva2002/index.html. Journal of Research in International Education

Information regarding the launch of this journal in 2002 can be found at: www.paulchapmanpublishing.co.uk/journals/details/j0418.html. Research committee

The first research committee meeting for 2002 will be held in May. Submissions for research proposals for this meeting have closed. However, proposals can be sent at any time and will be considered as soon as possible after this meeting. Research literature

The following list of references is provided as a service to our readers. The citing of such information is not intended to imply that the IBO agrees with the findings provided therein. A database of publications relating to the IB programmes is currently being compiled.

Jones, P. 1998. “Globalisation and Internationalism: democratic prospects for world education”. Comparative Education, Vol 34, number 2.

Todeva, E. 1999. “Models for the comparative analysis of culture: the case of Poland”. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, Vol 10, number 4.

Watkins, D. 2000. “Learning and Teaching: a cross-cultural perspective ”. School Leadership and Management, Vol 20, number 2.

Woolf, M. 2002. “Harmony and Dissonance in International Education: The Limits of Globalisation”. Journal of Studies in International Education, Vol 6, number 1. Research conference

IB teachers can access the research conference, a set of discussion forums dedicated to research matters, through news and information on the online curriculum centre (http://online.ibo.org). Eventually this research conference will be available to non-IB teachers through the IBO’s main web site (http://www.ibo.org). Two forums are available: IB research notes and international education. These are managed by Roger Brown, research manager/editor IB Research Notes, and are intended to be trilingual (English, French and Spanish). Teachers are encouraged to share their views by posting messages in these forums and, in particular, to comment on the articles published in IB Research Notes.

16 Research Noticeboard

IBO public web site

The IBO’s main web site (http://www.ibo.org) provides general information about the organization and its programmes. In the near future an enhanced research section will be available for those interested or involved in research in international education and in the International Baccalaureate. Online curriculum centre

The online curriculum centre (http://online.ibo.org) is available to all teachers in IB schools that subscribe to the site. All five areas of the online curriculum centre are valuable sources of information for those considering research related to the IB programmes.