Alberta Journal of Educational Research, Vol. 63.2, Summer 2017, 229-232 © 2017 The Governors of the University of Alberta 229 Book Review International Schools: Current Issues and Future Prospects Mary Hayden and Jeff Thompson, editors Oxford UK: Symposium Books, 2016 Reviewed by: Sharon Stein Idaho State University In this edited collection, editors Hayden and Thompson note that while it is difficult to distil a clear definition of international schools, the broadest definition of the term includes “schools that are not national in their location, composition and focus” (p. 11). Many of the first international schools, according to contributor Tate, were founded in the wake of both world wars “to cater for the needs of an internationally mobile professional elite” (p. 19), providing education to the children of diplomats and employees of the League of Nations (and later, United Nations), World Bank, and multinational corporations. In his contribution, Waterson notes that these parents not only sought quality schooling for their children but also believed “enlightened education” was a “partial solution to the fractured world torn apart by two catastrophic world wars” (p. 186). However, as the number of international schools proliferated since the 1960s, and especially since the turn of the 21 st century, the focus, characteristics, and student makeup of these schools has significantly diversified. As Walker notes in his chapter, in 2015 there were over 8,000 English-language international schools that enrolled over four million students. These numbers represent a doubling of schools and enrolments since 2000 and are expected to nearly double again by 2025. In consideration of this growth and of the shifting character of international schools, Hayden and Thompson offer a descriptive typology to refine their general definition: Type A, closest to the original type, catering to “globally mobile expatriates”; Type B, more ideologically focused schools (such as the well-known United World College); and Type C, which has most recently emerged with a more commercial focus and which recruit heavily from socially mobile host country nationals, rather than globally mobile expatriates (p. 13). These types reappear in relation to various dimensions of international schools throughout the subsequent chapters. The first several chapters, by Tate, Walker, Stobie, Skelton, and Fabian, emphasize questions of curriculum, pedagogy, and learning in international schools. Tate refutes the idea of a universalized approach to international education and argues for contextual considerations in creating curriculum, while at the same time, he defends vigorously the centrality of liberal Enlightenment humanism in international schooling, which is a paradox that I return to later in this book review. In their chapters, both Skelton and Fabian emphasize that the goal of international learning is not to absorb standardized international content but rather to develop international mindedness (Fabian) and an international disposition (Skelton), in order to, as Skelton describes it, enable students to “become positively able to be with an other” (p. 80,