Chapter 14: What Discursive Practices can Reveal About “Being” Global: An Analysis of the Discourse of the International Baccalaureate Organization

An often-overlooked aspect of Aristotle’s depiction of man is the closeness by which he ties together man’s “nature... to live in a polis (politikon zoon)” and “the unique human capacity for speech” (Chilton & Schaffner, 2002, p. 1). This relationship between speech and polis, discourse and power is the foundation upon which this chapter¹ is built. While the immediate goal is to present a study of the conceptualization of international education in the specific context of the discursive practices of the International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO), the more far-reaching and ultimately more important goal is to locate this analysis at the nexus of the intersection among language, power, and society. This study is not about the IBO per se, but rather about discursive manifestations regarding the conception of international education, a political consciousness, and a political position manifest in selected instances of the IBO’s discourse. The term “international” may reflect any number of arrangements of national and cultural in-clusiveness as well as national and cultural dominance. Through an analysis of endogenous documents of the IBO published from 1968-2000, I hope to bring attention to these arrangements of international relations in order to shed light upon the power of discourse to transform, resist, or reproduce a world order.