Leading international-mindedness : leadership and culture

Economic, social, political demographic changes due to globalization change the field of international education. International schools have a duty to respond to these changes through developing international-mindedness in their work with learners. This study explored how international school leaders operationalised their role in leading international-mindedness in different secondary school settings within the international education community. The aim was to explore the field of international school leadership related to this topic to better understand the needs of those in the field in order to be able to support them more effectively in future. The researcher employed qualitative thematic analysis to explore how school leaders understood the meaning of international-mindedness. The researcher then explored how they operationalise this into their school contexts. The researcher has triangulated methods from official documents related to the international school community, conducted a series of semi-structured interviews with school leaders in three continents and an open online survey to explore this theme in the field of operationalization. All the participants expressed the view that international-mindedness is a central aim of our teaching and leading in all the schools and is highly fluid and contextual in its form in different settings. The findings were that international-mindedness was related to understanding and adopting different perspectives when looking at situations, linked to communication in terms of language and other forms of communication. Fundamentally, this field requires a high degree of empathy and emotional intelligence of leaders when working with such diverse school communities in their leadership. The work of school leaders in this field about creating conditions for growth in the collective capacity through motivation, support, coaching and opportunities for individual and collective reflection. This study aims to provide clear recommendations for the needs of international school leaders to improve the capacity of international schools in this field. Using the knowledge and understandings in this project, the researcher has developed a reflection tool for school leaders to use within their communities for individual and collective growth