Field theory and education: a case study of the international baccalaureate

This article attempts to bridge a divide between the empirical use of Bourdieu's concepts and the theoretical discussion of field theory with regard to education. I ask how a school can be 'international' where education is predominantly embedded in nation-states. First, I introduce field theory and its applications to globalization and education. Second, I analyze the International Baccalaureate Organization, a large non-profit provider of accreditation for schools, as a case for conceptualizing a global field of 'international education.' My ethnographic and historical findings provide the background for the global field argument. Second, drawing on IBO's student data, I construct a geometric space of IB schools and analyze it as a relatively autonomous subfield. Finally, I show how combining field analysis and geometric modeling yields a new perspective on 'international education.'