This article reports on a study of the professional identity of expatriate teachers working in an international school in Malaysia. It examines the practical, cultural and professional challenges they experienced as they transitioned to an international school setting. Their experiences of curricular, organisational and cultural change are explored, and the impact of these on their professional identity is analysed. Also explored is the importance of a professional community with shared norms to maintaining a continued identity in the face of change.

Although there has been considerable research into expatriate children attending international schools, there has been little investigation into children who attend international schools within their own nation. Seeking to redress this imbalance, this article analyses interview data from a small-scale study of host country nationals attending an international school in Malaysia, in order to examine the significance attached by them to international schooling, and contrasts these accounts with interviews conducted with their expatriate teachers.

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This paper explores the identity of teachers in international schools who are embarking on postgraduate studies in education. Based on semi-structured interviews with 20 teachers starting an international qualification, it establishes key aspects of their identity and notes that they feel distinct from teaching professionals in their passport countries. From this discussion, a tool-box of concepts for understanding the identity of international school teachers is suggested, together with a typology of international school teachers echoing Hayden & Thompson’s (2013) typology of international schools. It is suggested that these concepts require further exploration and empirical substantiation in order both to understand their implications for addressing teacher shortages and to understand the knowledge, skills and attitudes that teachers with non-conventional qualifications and backgrounds may offer to schools.