Walking in another's skin: the cultivation of empathy and intercultural understanding in the International Baccalaureate Program
Date
2016
Authors
Mainhart, Kaitlyn, author
Coke, Pamela, advisor
Langstraat, Lisa, committee member
Frederiksen, Heidi, committee member
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
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Abstract
In 1968, the International Baccalaureate Program (IB) was launched and within 10 years the program exploded in popularity all over the world. Now that popularity has spread to 159 countries with nearly half of IB accredited world school located in the United States. Due to the majority of these schools being located in the west, arguments have begun to arise about the program veering away from its original intention of providing international education to produce intercultural understanding and global citizens, to prioritize western ideals and values. Despite the clear statement of purpose to foster intercultural understanding and global citizens in the Mission Statement and the Learner Profile a gap between the IB mission and classroom execution has begun to appear. This thesis explores how this increasing gap between the IB Mission Statement and classroom execution can begin to be closed through the exploration of the use of literature from different cultures to develop empathy and increase intercultural understanding in the classroom. To demonstrate how to foster an empathetic reading through literature I analyze sections from Harper Lee’s 1960 novel To Kill a Mockingbird and Sherman Alexie’s 2007 novel Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. I illustrate through this literary analysis, after identifying the foundational mission of the IB through an examination of the Mission Statement and the three terms – inquiring, knowledgeable, and caring – that appear both in the Mission Statement and the Learner Profile, how reading literature to cultivate empathy can increase intercultural understanding and international education.