What is an 'international school'?

Part one

I would like to put forward some thinking which may assist us to overcome the problem of defining an international school. The impetus to write this paper came from reading Tristan Bunnell's (2014) latest book in which he discusses the evolution of the concept of international schooling and its association with international schools.

Existing def initions of 'international school' (IS)

In 1962 Bob Leach was seconded, as head of histor y at the International School of Geneva, to visit international schools in the eastern hemisphere where he travelled extensively for three months and make a report for the International Schools Association (ISA), founded in 1951 (Leach 1969). It was Leach who first proposed, in his report, an international baccalaureate and then contributed energetically to make it happen.

Along with a member of his history department, Michael K night, Leach produced what is arguably the f irst typology of international schools. The typology was based on Leach's first-hand experience visiting schools in many countries during his secondment. They posited seven types of international schools in their article (Knight & Leach 1964) in the Education Year Book 1964:

1. Common Market (now EU) schools.

2. Those sponsored by the French and German governments within their own countries for the children of NATO and UN agency employees.

3. International Schools Association (ISA) member schools with government support (such as UNIS supported by the UN, IS of Ghana supported by seven embassies where 40% of students were Ghanaian, IS of Geneva with some support from the Swiss government).

4. ISA member schools without government support (such as the International Primary Schools of Djakarta, Kabul and Belgrade, ISs of The Hague, Milan, and Brussels).

5. Schools eligible for ISA membership (such as the ISs of Hamburg and Frankfurt, American IS of New Delhi, IS of Bangkok).

6. 'Overseas' schools; these included some 50-60 'bi-national schools' that are parent-owned, English-speaking, and American-programme-centred, and are found in Latin America. They also included the many USA, French, German, British, and other nations' schools abroad; curiously, Atlantic College (which later became the first United World College and was founded in 1962) was included because it was 'organised by the British'.

7. Personally owned profit-making schools with an international character.

This classification...