Negotiating the tensions: A critical study of international schools’ mission statements

This paper examines how international schools negotiate the competing demands set forth by the discourses of ideological ‘internationalism’ and ‘market-driven’ multinationalism. This was accomplished through a critical discourse analysis of the mission statements of 46 Association of American Schools in South America (AASSA) member international schools. By identifying the interdiscursive and intertextual elements of the mission statements, we found that the potential tensions emerging from these competing discourses are often obfuscated, thus creating the semblance of congruency. This paper argues that by not acknowledging and disentangling these competing discourses, international schools may be subject to potentially detrimental consequences, which include marginalising their social and political possibilities and perpetuating neoliberal hegemony.