The International Baccalaureate and a framework for class consciousness: the potential outcomes of a ‘class-for-itself’

The International Baccalaureate (IB) examination system in early 2010 was on offer in 2700 schools in 139 countries. Since 1999, the Geneva-registered IB has created a platform for image consolidation, product standardization, and technological linkage. Out of this has emerged a globally branded ‘IB World’, educating the ‘IB Learner’, using an outcomes-based ‘IB Learner Profile’, and ‘IB Community Themes’. It is soon to be aligned within an ‘IB Association’. This creates a potential framework for class consciousness. The ‘IB Learner’, forming a ‘class-in-itself’, might form a self-conscious social grouping, a ‘class-for-itself’. This paper explores possible outcomes, within the context of two ‘agendas’. The ‘agenda for global peace’ desires an irenic class, tolerant and culturally aware. Within the context of an ‘agenda for global business’ a more inner-directed class might appear, sympathetic to globalization and the needs of Capital. Alternatively, a ‘third way’ could appear; a class who is business-oriented but socially-responsible.