Abstract

The International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO) is an international education system managing 1,844 schools in 124 countries. According to its mission statement, the IBO aims to develop "active learners, well-rounded individuals and engaged world citizens" (IBO, 2006). This thesis presupposes that school experiences play a life-long role in the lives of students. Although this research project is not a study of causality, I set out to explore the political values of former IBO students. Driven by the principles of critical qualitative theory, which ultimately views social research as a vehicle for social change approached through active citizenship, I am interested in whether the political values of former IBO students lean more towards passive or active, national or cosmopolitan manifestations. To this effect, ten former IBO students filled in an online questionnaire measuring political tendencies. In order to explore more directly the participants' definitions and understandings of the issues, I invited them to an online message board where they answered eight questions inspired by the preliminary coding of the questionnaire data. I found that the group exhibited predominantly passive and cosmopolitan political tendencies. Situating my field research in a democratic cosmopolitan citizenship matrix, I argue that the most effective approach for IBO privileged adults to contribute to a more just and equitable world, as held in their cosmopolitan worldview, must be active cosmopolitan citizenship. Therefore, I suggest that the IBO do all it can to contribute to their students' future sense of political agency by supplying them with the faith and tools for active cosmopolitan citizenship