International schooling: implications of the changing growth pattern

The term ‘international education’ remains a contested and ambiguous one. It has ‘multiple meanings in a range of contexts’ (Bray, 2015 p122) and it is argued that perhaps the term ‘global education’ might be a better ‘umbrella term’ (Marshall, 2015 p109). The dimension of international education, loosely defined by early writers as ‘the various types of educational and cultural relations among nations’ (see Bray, 2015 p123) that is concerned with ‘international schooling’, arguably another umbrella term, has grown enormously over recent years and warrants closer critical attention. Moreover, it has also substantially changed in appearance, and in ways that may have caught many educators and observers by surprise. As this chapter sets out to show, at least one ‘player’ in the field, the European Council of International Schools (ECIS), is undergoing a re-positioning exercise in dealing with the changes that have occurred. The chapter will highlight some of these changes, both in terms of scale and pattern of activity, and attempt to move the discussion forward by focusing on the implications and possible effects particularly in the three areas of legitimacy, strategy and research.