Figure 14 - uploaded by Saira Fitzgerald
Content may be subject to copyright.
Source publication
This article presents the results of the first Canada-wide survey on how university admissions personnel view the International Baccalaureate Diploma Program (IBDP) in relation to other curricula. The purpose of this study was twofold: (i) to move beyond anecdote and discover how Canada compares with universities in the UK and Australia/NZ, and (ii...
Citations
... Even when graduates are choosing among many universities in Canada, the "big 2" is still apparent; for example, Bangkok Patana School sent 102 graduates to 20 universities in Canada between 2018 and 2019, and 40% entered either UBC or Toronto. This seems to support the findings by Fitzgerald and Waks (2015), and Fitzgerald (2017) that Canadian universities are increasingly attracted towards IBDP graduates. ...
... We can now add more precision to which universities they proceed to enter, although Canada quite often seems the major destination followed by the UK and then the USA. The reports by Fitzgerald and Waks (2015) and Fitzgerald (2017) had shown that Canadian universities have an increasingly favourable image of the IBDP and so the emergence of UBC and Toronto as major matriculation destinations for graduates from the ETIS might not be as surprising as first seems. ...
The International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IBDP) celebrates its 60th Anniversary in 2022 as an international mobility “passport”, offering potential entry to universities around the world. Globally, 3,600 schools in July 2022 offer the IBDP. Within these, there is a sub-grouping of well-established private “elite traditional international schools” (ETISs), epitomised by the International Schools of Geneva and Yokohama. Using matriculation data mined from the websites of individual ETISs, this paper reveals the major university destinations. The emergent dominance of relatively few destinations (five in particular), mainly in Canada and England, offers an interesting avenue for research inquiry. Conversely, the relatively low entry level of ETIS graduates into the world’s most prestigious universities, such as the Oxbridge pairing, can be compared. A seemingly “natural pathway” to Toronto rather than Harvard has emerged and warrants much further discussion and investigation.
... The increasing popularity of the IB in Canada appears to have been accompanied by a corresponding devaluation of the local provincial curriculum alongside which it is offered Fitzgerald 2017bFitzgerald , 2018Resnik, 2012;Steiner-Khamsi, 2018). For example, the IB organization website states quite explicitly that IB programs provide "unique academic rigour" and "aim to do more than other curricula" (IBO, 2019a). ...
... However, such comparisons are not always explicit and the merits of the IB are often assumed or implied. As noted by a number of researchers, knowledge about the IB remains vague and superficial, relying predominantly on information produced by the IB organization itself or by affiliates such as regional associations and practitioners (Bunnell, 2011b;Fitzgerald, 2015Fitzgerald, , 2017bTarc & Beatty, 2012). The resulting impact of this perception of IB superiority on public education is little understood. ...
... Although Canada has the second-highest number of IB schools in the world, with the number continuing to grow (386 to date), research on the IB in Canada is relatively minimal and is mostly restricted to individual provinces or schools. As discussed elsewhere (Fitzgerald, 2017b), there are conflicting accounts in the literature regarding reasons for adoption of the IB in Canada. One dominant view is that the IB addresses a perceived deficit in the provincial curriculum (e.g., Baker, 2014). ...
This study has a dual purpose: (1) to show how computer-assisted discourse analysis of a 1.5-million-word specialized corpus can uncover patterns of language use that provide insights into the beliefs and values of a particular social group, making possible a "new way of looking at old puzzles" (Stubbs, 2010); and (2) to examine how the International Baccalaureate (IB) is represented in the Canadian provincial context. Although keywords reveal lexical differences in how the IB is represented in each province, in-depth contextual analysis indicates a similarity of concerns, particularly with regard to funding and cost of IB programs.
... The shift from elite to mass higher education in the world, including in Canada, increased competition for university admission and access to coveted careers. Since the IBDP has a highly positive perception among admissions officers in Canadian universities (Fitzgerald 2017) and is conceived as highly demanding academically it is considered as paving the way for students not only to access universities but also to obtain credits and scholarships (Resnik 2016b). Schools use these arguments in order to attract as many students aspiring to higher education as possible. ...
Since the 1980s, education in Canada has been through a process that led to school choice, targeting the improvement of students’ performance through school competition. These policies fostering an education quasi-market became an ideal framework for the expansion of IB schools. Since the Diploma Programme of the International Baccalaureate (IBDP) offers a differentiated international curriculum and is perceived as a program that contributes to students’ achievements, it has been increasingly adopted in school districts and schools. This paper explores the marketing strategies developed in schools and districts in response to school competition by tracing the incorporation of the IBDP in high schools in different districts in British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec. Based on interviews with school staff, district officials and IB local association representatives, this study analyzes schools’ marketing decisions from a consumer and producer orientation taking into account the macro environment (federal government) and micro-environment (provincial government and districts). Rather than fostering efficiency and improving students’ achievement as intended, marketization policies resulted in an increased focus on the recruitment of high achieving students, which led to a competition between schools, between districts and between other programs in the districts or in other words –an ‘all against all’ competition.
The analysis of the international position of the IB Diploma presented in the previous chapter invites more detailed, country-specific analyses. This chapter uses existing research to review the diffusion of the IB Diploma across high school credential markets internationally, focussing on its school and student recruitment, academic profile and association with international mobility. Research on the IB Diploma in North America, South America, Europe, East and Southeast Asia and Oceania is used to identify commonalities and contrasts between its position in different credential markets. The chapter reveals that the position of the IB Diploma in a given country is dependent on the education system features within which it becomes embedded. This complexifies attempts to reach general conclusions about the IB Diploma internationally. Nevertheless, academic and social discrimination appear to be consistently associated with the presence of the IB Diploma in high school certification markets. This finding is used to guide the credential-based and academic competition-focused theoretical lens adopted to examine the specific structures of the Australian high school credential market in the rest of the book.
This paper examines the discursive construction of the International Baccalaureate (IB) in a 1.5 million word corpus of Canadian newspapers. Combining corpus analysis with the Discourse Historical branch of Critical Discourse Analysis, the study aims to identify discursive strategies employed in the construction of an IB in-group and a non-IB out-group, and suggests they are similar to those evident in discourses of discrimination that marginalise or exclude the outgroup (Baker, Gabrielatos and McEnery 2013a; KhosraviNik 2010; Reisigl and Wodak 2001). While discourses of discrimination tend to be directed at minority groups, in this case, the minority group is the in-group, exhibiting uniformly positive qualities. As a result, a ‘dichotomous world of insiders and outsiders’ (Reisigl and Wodak 2001:105) is created, privileging one and disadvantaging the other. This paper seeks to problematise the seemingly uncritical acceptance and adoption of IB programs in Canada’s publicly funded education system.
