The internationalisation of education has become pervasive with neoliberalism transforming national educational systems globally. Countries within Southeast and East Asian contexts pursue curriculum development addressing globalisation through various international curricula. The International Baccalaureate's influence continues growing, particularly within East and Southeast Asia, where its links to global capital and educational internationality expand significantly. The programme's remarkable expansion reflects this broader neoliberal transformation: as of 2025, the IB serves 1.95 million students through over 8,700 programmes across 6,000 schools in 160 countries worldwide. The Asia-Pacific region hosts 1,973 IB World programmes, accounting for 27% of global offerings (International Baccalaureate Organisation, 2025).This study presents comparative analysis of IB practices in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan—contexts inadequately explored—examining the interplay between global and national forces shaping curricula and school practices.

This expansion within neoliberal frameworks generates complex tensions that remain inadequately understood, particularly in politically sensitive contexts. The central research question asks: How do IB schools navigate competing pressures of cosmopolitan educational ideals and nationalist political sensitivities? This inquiry becomes particularly urgent when examining Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan—three societies presenting distinct yet interconnected challenges for international education implementation.

Singapore represents "controlled internationalisation," balancing global competitiveness with national identity preservation through strict regulatory oversight. Hong Kong's landscape has been fundamentally altered by post-1997 political transitions and recent national security legislation, creating parameters where schools navigate complex political sensitivities while maintaining international credentials. Taiwan presents a unique case where international education serves dual functions: enhancing global competitiveness while supporting diplomatic recognition and democratic values amid cross-strait political complexities, creating specific challenges around geopolitical sensitivities and educational resource dependencies distinguishing it from Singapore and Hong Kong.

Within the European context, mass migration has created parallel challenges in catering to diversified populations while fostering harmonious coexistence and common identity. International schools have adopted internationally minded curricula like the IB to address diverse student bodies, yet simultaneously face tensions between cosmopolitan educational ideals and nationalist sensitivities (Hayden & Thompson, 2016). The IB's reputation for "elite academically challenging" standards positions it competitively against local and Cambridge examination systems (Doherty, 2009). This study's findings in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan directly parallel European experiences: schools in both contexts are constituted through irreconcilable tensions between global credentials and national imperatives, market-driven credential economies and pedagogical commitments, and cosmopolitan rhetoric masking reproduction of hierarchies. The structural ambivalence observed across East Asian contexts resonates with European international schools navigating similar contradictions between internationalist missions and increasingly assertive nationalist policies.

This study integrates Lingard's (2010) "imbrication" with Bhabha's (1994) hybridisation theory to examine IB schools in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. While both frameworks reject global-local dichotomies, they operate at different analytical levels. Lingard's imbrication maps macro-structural entanglements—how global educational frameworks interweave with local policy through curriculum implementation, market competition, and regulatory governance. However, this study foregrounds Bhabha's hybridisation to reframe IB schools not as strategic actors navigating these forces, but as institutional subjects constituted through discursive encounters that generate structural ambivalence—the impossibility of simultaneously satisfying cosmopolitan and nationalist demands. This synthesis positions IB schools as "third spaces" where neither global nor local categories remain stable, producing formations that exceed institutional control.

Rather than dismissing the "progressive Western" versus "conservative local" binary as reductive, our analysis reveals this reductionism as integral to the colonial gaze embedded in educational markets. Parents and stakeholders enforce these essentialist tropes through purchasing power, compelling schools to perform Western-ness as a quality proxy. The binary thus constitutes a structural constraint imposed by neoliberal marketplaces that commodify race and nationality.

This study employed a qualitative comparative case study approach to examine how International Baccalaureate curricula are contextualised across three Southeast and East Asian contexts. Following Crowe et al.'s (2011) collective case study framework, the study examined multiple cases simultaneously to generate broader appreciation of IB contextualisation practices. The research design adapted Yin's (2014) hybrid model, combining single and multiple case design elements to examine three separate cases within their specific national contexts while acknowledging their positioning within broader global education policy flows. Fifteen international schools were purposively selected across the three contexts: three schools in Singapore, six in Hong Kong, and six in Taiwan. Selection criteria prioritised schools with established IB programmes, varying implementation histories, and diverse institutional characteristics to capture the breadth of contextualisation practices. The sample included both prestigious established institutions and newer IB adopters, reflecting the varied landscape of international education in each context. To overcome methodological nationalism, a transnational analytical lens was employed, focusing on shared contextual characteristics including postcolonial conditions, neoliberal economic systems, and ambivalent cultural identities across the three societies. Data collection involved multiple qualitative methods to ensure comprehensive understanding of IB contextualisation processes. Semi-structured interviews formed the primary data source, conducted with 45 participants across the 15 schools. Interviewees included IB coordinators, and 2-3 teachers involved in IB programme planning and delivery at each institution, ensuring diverse perspectives on curriculum implementation and adaptation. Interview protocols explored three key domains: participants' knowledge about IB practices within their specific contexts, current practices regarding IB curricula innovations and programmes, and perceived strengths and limitations of existing approaches. Questions elicited narratives about how schools navigate tensions between global IB standards and local educational, political, and cultural requirements. Supplementary data sources included document analysis of policy papers, curriculum materials, and syllabuses; website analysis examining institutional positioning and marketing strategies; and field notes capturing observational insights about school cultures and practices. This multi-method approach enabled triangulation of findings and deeper understanding of contextualisation processes under investigation. The analytical approach incorporated both inductive and deductive elements, following Trochim and Donnelly's (2008) coding framework. Analysis proceeded through four distinct phases: initial data familiarisation, systematic coding of interview transcripts and documents, theme development and refinement, and cross-case comparative analysis. This multi-phase process enabled identification of both context-specific patterns and broader trends across the three societies. Cross-case analysis was essential for identifying similarities and differences in IB adoption and implementation practices.

This study demonstrates that IB schools in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan are not strategic actors navigating between global and local demands but rather sites where educational hybridization emerges through context-specific encounters with neoliberal governance. Schools are constituted through processes that exceed institutional control, revealing fundamental tensions within international education in postcolonial East Asian contexts. Three interconnected dimensions reveal how schools lack autonomous agency and instead operate within constraints that reproduce existing power asymmetries. Curriculum localisation exposes the structural impossibility of separating Chinese and international knowledge systems, generating formations where neither global nor local categories remain stable. Language integration across contexts—Singapore's market-driven Mandarin programs, Hong Kong's comparative frameworks under political surveillance, and Taiwan's mainland-oriented materials—reinforces rather than challenges existing hierarchies of knowledge and cultural power. Teacher autonomy proves illusory, constrained by intersecting market imperatives, political restrictions, and internalized conservatism. Market positioning reveals how schools are constituted through credential economies, parental anxieties, and racialized preferences that privilege Western educators over pedagogical competence. The IB functions primarily as credentialing mechanism rather than transformative pedagogy, perpetuating colonial hierarchies and facilitating elite reproduction. International education thus operates within, rather than challenges, neoliberal market logic and colonial legacies. Strategic ambivalence emerges not as conscious institutional positioning but as structural impossibility—schools face contradictory demands they cannot satisfy simultaneously, creating institutional subjects characterized by perpetual instability. East Asian IB schools' exceptional performance, exemplified by Singapore producing 55% of global perfect scores, creates "unintentional slippage" exposing the arbitrariness of global educational hierarchies. When postcolonial schools outperform Western counterparts, "international" standards' contingency becomes visible, revealing how international education operates through power relations in credential economies, linguistic hierarchies, and cultural valuations increasingly unsettled by shifting global configurations. Educational hybridization produces "third spaces" irreducible to Western or non-Western categories, generating fundamentally uncertain and contested educational futures.

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