MYP Global Contexts: Is Yours Shaping the Inquiry?

A teacher finishes planning a unit. The content is strong, the activities are ready and the assessment makes sense. One field remains: Global Context.

They choose the closest match and move on.

Nothing about the learning changes. Students meet the same questions, use the same sources and complete the same task. The planner looks complete, but the context has not influenced a decision.

A recent Koncepts LinkedIn post offers a useful test:

“Remove the Global Context. Just delete it from the planner. Does the unit change at all?”

The test concerns the thinking behind the heading, not just the heading itself. A context can remain present in a well designed unit even after its label disappears.

The real question is whether removing that perspective would change what students investigate, which evidence they consider or how they justify their conclusions.

What Are MYP Global Contexts?

MYP Global Contexts connect disciplinary learning with questions about people and the world. They work alongside conceptual understanding rather than replacing subject knowledge. The IB MYP curriculum framework places both contextual learning and conceptual understanding within its approach to teaching.

The IB’s Programme standards and practices makes the purpose explicit:

“Teachers use local and global contexts to establish the relevance of the curriculum.”

The distinction is useful when planning. A topic identifies the content, such as migration, linear relationships or portraiture. Concepts identify the larger ideas students will explore. The Global Context gives those ideas a particular human significance.

The IB’s MYP: From principles into practice, updated in 2022, advises teachers to identify one Global Context for each unit. Students should encounter all six over their course of study.

That is a reason to plan breadth across the programme, not to squeeze six perspectives into every assessment.

The Six MYP Global Contexts, With Classroom Examples

The following summaries draw on the Global Context descriptions and explorations. The classroom examples are suggested applications, not prescribed IB units.

Identities and relationships

This context explores identity, relationships, values and wellbeing.

In a language unit, students might examine how belonging affects a character’s decisions. In physical and health education, they could investigate how team roles influence participation. The focus is not simply describing people, but understanding what shapes their experiences.

Orientation in space and time

This context considers journeys, histories, place and change over time.

A migration unit might compare maps, personal accounts and historical records to investigate how movement reshaped a community. Students would need to explain why location and timing matter, rather than assembling a timeline of events.

Personal and cultural expression

This context explores how people create, express and interpret ideas and values.

An arts unit could ask students to communicate the same idea to two different audiences. Their artistic choices would need justification. Producing an attractive final piece alone would not explain how expression changes with audience or cultural setting.

Scientific and technical innovation

This context examines scientific understanding, technological development and their consequences.

A design unit might compare solutions to an everyday problem, then test how well each meets a user’s needs. The inquiry could include the limitations of a model or the unintended consequences of a proposed improvement.

Globalization and sustainability

This context considers interconnected systems and the consequences of decisions for communities and environments.

Students could trace an everyday product through sourcing, production, use and disposal. Rather than ending with a recycling poster, they might investigate where responsibility sits and which proposed change has the strongest supporting evidence.

Fairness and development

This context examines opportunity, rights, responsibility and the distribution of resources.

A mathematics unit might compare transport pricing models for different passenger profiles. Students would use calculations to investigate who benefits, who faces barriers and what assumptions sit behind a claim that one option is fairer.

These are possibilities, not subject assignments. Science does not always need Scientific and technical innovation, and arts does not automatically belong under Personal and cultural expression.

Choose a Focused Exploration, Not Just a Broad Label

“Fairness and development” is too broad to determine next Monday’s lesson.

A more useful planning choice would be unequal access to affordable transport. That focus suggests particular evidence, competing needs and decisions students can investigate.

Try completing this sentence:

Through this context, students will investigate ______ so that they can understand ______.

For example:

“Through Fairness and development, students will investigate transport pricing so that they can understand how mathematical models reveal differences in access.”

This is a planning prompt, not an IB requirement. Its value is that it makes a vague choice harder to hide behind.

Students now need information about journey frequency, fares and affordability. A collection of unrelated transport facts would not be enough.

Same Topic, Different Global Context: What Should Change?

Consider a mathematics unit on linear relationships.

Through Scientific and technical innovation, the inquiry might focus on how mathematical models represent transport systems. Students compare predictions with data, explain the assumptions in their models and evaluate their usefulness.

Through Fairness and development, the same mathematics could investigate how pricing affects different passengers. Students compare occasional travellers with frequent users, examine the effect of an upfront fee and justify a recommendation.

Both versions may require graphs, equations, gradients and intersections. The mathematical content does not need to change completely.

What changes is the purpose of the comparison and the evidence needed for a convincing answer.

In the first version, a student might conclude that a model predicts costs accurately within a particular range. In the second, a student might find that a cheaper monthly option remains inaccessible to someone who cannot pay the initial fee.

That is a meaningful context change. Replacing a heading while keeping an identical explanation of success is not.

Carry the Context Through the Statement of Inquiry

The IB describes the Statement of Inquiry as a connection between key concepts, related concepts and context that expresses a transferable understanding. Its planning guidance states:

“The selected global context will inform the questions that teachers and students ask throughout the unit.”

Source: MYP: From principles into practice, page 62.

For the transport example, a possible Statement of Inquiry is:

Representing relationships through mathematical models can reveal inequalities in access to services.

This goes beyond announcing that students will study linear equations. It gives them an understanding to investigate and potentially apply elsewhere.

The following original questions show how the statement could guide a unit:

Factual: What do the gradient and intercept represent in each fare model?

Conceptual: How can the same pricing structure affect different groups differently?

Debatable: Should a fair transport system charge every passenger the same amount?

These questions should support one another. Students need accurate mathematics before they can evaluate a pricing decision. A discussion about fairness cannot compensate for an incorrect model.

Make the Context Visible in Research, Assessment and Reflection

The context should influence what learners do, not just what the teacher introduces.

During research, ask students to explain why a source matters. In the transport unit, a fare chart provides information about price. A journey profile adds information about use. Neither necessarily tells the whole story about affordability.

During assessment, ask for a decision that needs contextual evidence. Students could recommend a pricing model for a supplied community profile, support the recommendation mathematically and explain a limitation. This is more demanding than adding “How does this relate to fairness?” after a routine graphing exercise.

During reflection, ask what changed in their thinking. “Which passenger’s circumstances affected your recommendation?” is more revealing than “Which Global Context did we use?”

The same approach transfers to other subjects. A literature student might explain how a different audience changed their interpretation. A design student might identify the user requirement that forced them to revise a solution.

Keep the assessment criteria clear

The Global Context is not an extra assessment criterion. The IB’s MYP assessment guidance identifies subject objectives and their assessment criteria as the basis for teacher judgement.

In the transport example, use the appropriate mathematics criteria to assess the work. Do not reward a student simply for agreeing with the teacher’s preferred definition of fairness.

For a subject specific explanation, read MYP Mathematics Criteria A to D. It distinguishes mathematical knowledge, investigation, communication and contextual application.

Three Mistakes Worth Catching Before the Unit Starts

Choosing the context after every other decision is fixed. Revisit the inquiry, sources and assessment when you select the context. A finished activity sequence should still be open to revision.

Confusing a setting with a perspective. A problem about a foreign country is not automatically globally contextualised. Ask what students must understand about the people, systems or choices involved.

Turning the inquiry into a predetermined moral answer. A unit about sustainability should allow students to examine evidence and competing priorities, not simply reproduce a conclusion supplied by the teacher.

The IB standards emphasise both local connections and the transfer of understanding to unfamiliar contexts. A nearby issue can therefore be a strong starting point. What matters is the quality of the connection, not its distance from school.

A Quick Global Context Audit

Before teaching, review the unit with a colleague:

• We can explain why this context suits the intended inquiry.
• At least one research choice, task or decision depends on it.
• Students will use evidence to explore more than one perspective.
• Reflection asks how the context influenced their thinking.
• The subject knowledge and assessment criteria remain explicit.

This is a suggested planning check, not an IB compliance checklist.

During the unit, ask a student why the class is investigating this particular problem. Their answer may reveal more than a completed planner field.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can a unit connect with more than one Global Context?

Yes. Select a principal context to keep the inquiry focused, but do not reject useful questions because they connect with another. The IB planning guide explicitly recognises that explorations overlap.

Must every lesson mention the Global Context?

Treat this as a coherence check, not a repetition exercise. Teach the vocabulary, methods and knowledge students need, then create deliberate opportunities to use them in the contextual inquiry. Repeating the title is less useful than showing its effect on a decision.

Does the Global Context affect MYP eAssessment?

Yes. The IB’s examination preparation guidance states that a Global Context informs each session’s on screen examinations and ePortfolio tasks. It is announced six months before the examination session. Schools should check the session guidance in the Programme Resource Centre rather than assuming that classroom choices replace examination requirements.

Using Koncepts Without Outsourcing the Planning Decision

The Koncepts MYP Unit Planner brings together concepts, the Statement of Inquiry, Global Context, ATL, criteria and tasks. Setting a unit as active allows its information to prefill lessons, assessments and feedback.

That continuity can reduce repeated entry. It cannot establish that a context is meaningful merely because the field is populated.

Review the generated plan with the same question you would ask of your own draft: What will students do differently because this context is here?

More Published Koncepts Guides to Explore

The Three Koncepts Tools Every IB MYP Teacher Should Know provides a walkthrough of the Unit Planner, Assessment Generator and Feedback Writer.

MYP Math Criterion B: How to Design Tasks for Level 7 and 8 is a useful companion when reviewing whether a task gives students sufficient room to investigate and justify.

Koncepts MYP Assessment Generator and Rubric Maker Guide explains the workflow for drafting questions and task specific assessment clarifications.

The Context Should Leave Evidence

Before the next unit begins, look beyond the completed field.

Find the source students will choose because of the context. Find the decision they will justify through it. Find the reflection that asks them to reconsider an assumption.

When those connections are visible, the Global Context is doing real work. It is helping students understand not only the subject, but why this particular inquiry deserves their attention.

Start with the Koncepts MYP Unit Planner, then make the contextual choices that only you and your learners can make.