Reframing DEIJ to Drive Belonging: Stakeholders' Engagement and What This Means for International Schools

Abstract

Globalisation has reconfigured international schools into dense microcosms of cultural plurality, mobility, and negotiation, where identities, languages, and pedagogies intersect in real time (Appadurai, 1996; Castells, 2010). Amid these shifting circuits of people and meaning, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice (DEIJ) frameworks have emerged as institutional responses to longstanding inequities; yet research increasingly shows that representation and procedural fairness alone are insufficient to transform the everyday emotional landscapes of learners. Belonging, understood as the affective, cognitive, and relational condition of being recognised, valued, and safe, has re-emerged as a pivotal lens through which international schools can reimagine inclusion (Walton & Brady, 2020; OECD, 2018).

Guided by Noddings’ ethics of care, Shields’ transformative-leadership theory, Bourdieu’s social-field dynamics, and Tinto’s model of institutional integration, this paper critically examines how reframing DEIJ through the prism of belonging reshapes stakeholder engagement and catalyses systemic change within international school ecosystems. Drawing on comparative scholarship in intercultural competence (Byram, 1997), global-competence education (OECD, 2018), and school-climate theory, the article analyses how relational trust, distributed leadership, and multilingual identity negotiation structure students’ lived experiences across culturally diverse settings.

The discussion situates this reframing within global policy agendas, including SDG 4.7 and international-school accreditation standards, arguing that centring belonging offers a scalable, ethically grounded pathway beyond compliance-driven DEIJ to genuinely inclusive schooling. Recommendations for leadership preparation, curriculum redesign, and community partnership conclude the paper, offering international schools a research-informed blueprint for embedding belonging as the cornerstone of equity-oriented transformation.