How autonomous schools marketise exclusion and monoculture by example of commercially driven international schools

This session will report on a study undertaken concerning the gender and ethnicity diversity of senior leaders (Heads, and Directors) employed in the growing arena of private K-12 English-speaking international schools. After several decades of slow growth, there are currently 13,200 of this type of school globally, teaching a curriculum in English outside an English-speaking nation. The existing period of globalisation has seen a huge demand for this kind of school, especially across Asia (where China is the largest market for schools) and the Middle East (where Dubai has the largest market of children), and they are expected to double in size by 2033. They are still staffed, in the main, by leaders and teachers from Britain and North America. This is a fast growing yet still largely under-reported arena of schooling and we still know little about the type of leadership that it attracts or involves.
We will show how the autonomous, well-established, accredited schools authorised to offer the programmes of the Geneva-registered International Baccalaureate, which we term the ‘Elite Traditional International Schools’ (ETISs), largely employ white males as the senior leader. Using data collected from the official websites of 10 commercially driven groupings of schools such as Nord Anglia Education, representing 250 schools in total, to show how a white male dominated ‘field of power’ is being (re)enforced. We will apply Pierre Bourdieu’s sociological notion of doxa, a form of ‘unwritten truth’, to show how this long-standing condition of exclusion and monoculture leadership is rarely questioned or discussed yet is openly practiced.
We see this important and original finding as a fundamental and enduring structural paradox, since the ETIS increasingly caters for the local population, and the once dominant Anglo-American expatriate community is a reduced force in the school. Further, such schools celebrate cultural diversity and aim as their mission to display respect for gender and ethnic diversity. Why then, does the ETIS practice discrimination in favour of a certain type of senior leader: white, male, and seemingly Anglo-Western? Why is this important topic, one we identify as a ‘leadership authenticity’ issue, seemingly rarely discussed? Further, is it atypical of other types of schools? Last, we invite advice on how we might investigate this topic further, both in terms of geography and type of school.
This session will be of particular interest to members of the Leadership in International and Comparative Education RIG (Research Interest Group).