Since World War II an international education market has emerged in general education, where numerous education providers offer their services, amongst others the development and organization of curricula and teaching resources, organization and conduct of congresses as well as consulting and certification of schools (Hornberg, 2012). One of these education providers is the International Baccalaureate Organisation (IBO), which developed curricula and a university entrance examination, namely the International Baccalaureate (IB), which neither evolved from a national education system nor are they based on an international agreement. These courses of education consist of the IB Diploma Programme for 16-19-year old students, the IB Middle Years Programme for 11-16-year old students, the IB Primary Years Programme for 5-11-year old students, and since 2014 the  IB Career related Programme, catering for students 16-19 years old. The Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs of the Laender in the Federal Republic of Germany approved the IB as university entrance qualification by the decree of March 10^th 1986 on the resolution for recognition of the “International BaccalaureateDiploma/Diplôme du Baccaluréat International”.

The education courses of the IBO are fee required and can be completed at private schools as well as public schools. Schools wanting to provide IB and/or IB programmes for their students have to complete a cost-intensive certification process under the authority of the IBO. In 2017, 4,775 schools in 143 countries worldwide offered the IB (cf. International Baccalaureate Organization 2017). In Germany there were 77 schools overall, of which 28 were public and 49 private schools.

The focus of the IBO educational objective is a school-leaving qualification and respective educational programmes which are approved across national borders. Stundents attending IB classes are taught IB curricula and encouraged to engage in developing intercultural and competencies for lifelong learning.

Against the background of the concept “transnational educational spaces” (comp. Adick, 2008; Hornberg, 2010) the IB and IB education programmes represent transnational educational spaces within the national education system (Hornberg 2012). This has implications for the public school system, because with the IB in addition to the nation state a transnational organization takes on tasks that the nation state itself would normally take care of (Hornberg, 2012). Thus, a private, non-public system is now interfering with the public school system, as it serves or desires to serve the same “customers” at the same point of time. The goal of the research project presented is to understand and analyze the conditions, motivation and requirements for and the implementation of transnational education at public schools, taking the IB as an example.

By analyzing, how the individual school system makes its decisions, insight is to be gained as to why it came to the implementation of the IB and IB programmes, and the subsequent processes and consequences this had for the single school system. Taking this case as a point of reference, more general tendencies shall be identified and taken into account for the analysis of school development processes. In view of the absence of respective empirical research (Hornberg, 2012), the project „Requirements for and Implementation of the International Baccalaurate in Germany - a Case Study at a Grammar School in North Rhine-Westphalia” aims at analyzing requirements for and implementation processes of the IB as well as advantages and shortcomings of the integration of IB on the level of single schools. First results from this project will be presented.

Following Adick and Hornberg (Adick, 2008; Hornberg 2010, 2012; 2014) the IB and IB programmes can be referred to as “transnational educational spaces”. They function on already existing transnational convergences (representing an isomorph structure), are non-governmental, but always in some way privately financed, and imply national border-transcending education processes. Transnational educational spaces are characterized by transnational educational opportunities. The perspective of transnationalism deals with educational spaces that “on the one hand exceed the borders of national states and national societies, but on the other hand are not simply global in the sense of ubiquitous or >present in all important world regions<.” (Pries 2001, p. 49). Transnational educational offers can be offered by for-profit as well as non-profit organizations , but by definition have to be border-transcending and privately financed. Following Hornberg’s broader definition (Hornberg, 2010) transnational educational opportunities can be described as education opportunities settled also in the compulsory educational system Schools offering the IB constitute transnational educational spaces and thus, IB can be described as transnational education opportunity (Adick, 2008). To understand the conditions, motivation, and requirements for and the implementation of transnational educational opportunities, a qualitative method was chosen. A portrait of the school is generated and narrative expert-interviews as well as group discussions with diverse agents of the school are conducted. These will be reconstructed with the documentary interpretation method (e.g., Bohnsack, 2010; Nohl, 2017) and analyzed with the software MAXQDA. With reference to the school portrait the previously described questions will be related to the context of the demographic and socio-cultural background of the school. Group discussions as well as expert-interviews aim at encouraging the interview partners to discuss their work practice and experiences. The expert-interviews will explore the motivation and reasons for the introduction of IB as well as its institutional manifestation from different angles. Thus, the school internal decision and development processes shall be reconstructed. During the group discussions, the following aspects will serve as a frame: the everyday working-life, the integration of IB into the curricular and overall structures of the school as well as personal motivation and reasons for choosing to teach IB or not.

The study in the field of internationalization of schools and school systems, international schools and transnational educational spaces is a reaction to a general research desideratum in these contexts, but especially in view of the investigation of the influence of an organization that takes on tasks that normally the national state would take care of. Thus, this research project is designed with the aim to analyze the way an individual school system takes operating decisions in the context described. The study attempts to answer the following questions: Which conditions, motivation and requirements are important for the individual school systems to implement the IB? Which developmental trends are already apparent and what can be learned from these processes for the analysis of processes of school development? The research project opens up comparative perspectives regarding the influence of a private, non-public organization operating worldwide in the national school systems.

Adick, C. (2008). Transnationale Bildungsorganisationen in transnationalen Bildungsräumen: Begriffsdefinitionen und Vorschlag für eine Typologie. TertiumComparationis, 14 (2), 168 – 197. Bohnsack, R. (2010). Dokumentarische Methode und Typenbildung – Bezüge zur Systemtheorie. In R. John, A. Henkel & J. Rückert-John (Hrsg.), Die Methodologien des Systems. Wie kommt man zum Fall und wie dahinter? (S. 291–320). Wiesbaden: Springer. Hornberg, S. (2010). Schule im Prozess der Internationalisierung von Bildung. Münster: Waxmann. Hornberg, S. (2012). Transnationale Bildungsräume im staatlichen Schulsystem. Tertium Comparationis, 18 (1), 108–127. Hornberg, S. (2014). Transnational educational spaces. Border-transcending dimensions in education. In L. Vega (Hrsg.), Empires, post-coloniality and interculturality. New challenges for comparative education (S. 171–180).Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. International Baccalaureate Organization.Key facts abouts the DP. Zugriff am 26.01.2018. Verfügbar unter http://www.ibo.org/programmes/diploma-programme/what-is-the-dp/key-facts-about-the-dp/ KMK – Sekretariat der Ständigen Konferenz der Kultusminister der Länder in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (2013). Vereinbarung über die Anerkennung des „International BaccalaureateDiploma/ Diplôme du Baccalauréat International“.Beschluss der Kultusministerkonferenz vom 10.03.1986 i. d. F. vom 02.03.2017. Zugriff am 23.01.2018. Verfügbar unter http://www.kmk.org/fileadmin/Dateien/pdf/ZA/Hochschulzugang_Beschluesse_der_KMK/IB_Diploma_11.pdf Nohl, A.-M. (2017). Interview und Dokumentarische Methoden. Anleitungen für die Forschungspraxis (Qualitative Sozialforschung, 5. Aufl.). Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. Pries, L. (2001): Internationale Migration. Bielefeld: transcript.