This thesis critically examines the origins and early development of Copenhagen International School (CIS, Denmark), which evolved from an American outpost secondary school, attached to the American embassy, to one of the first International Baccalaureate (IB) trial schools, in 1968. The case study places the school’s history in the Danish context of the mid-1960s and early 1970s, and in the wider international and geopolitical configurations of the same period. Using an insider approach, as a full member of the school, I apply a participative method which includes the role of school’s informants particularly in the preservation and the access to the data. By drawing on cross-analysis of the school unexplored records, donated materials, unofficial written histories and oral testimonies from alumni and staff members, the research addresses three questions:
1 What does the school’s early history reveal about the inception of international schooling in the mid-1960s and early 1970s?

2 Why and how did the foundation years of the school embody and reflect broader aspects and interests at stake in the world order?

3 What does the school’s early history unveil about its institutional identity?

The findings provide insights on the interplay and power games between multiple actors in a small international institution under a strong American influence where many interests were at stake. More specifically, it shows how the concept of internationalism embodied a range of different interpretations and had to be negotiated in the school day-to-day life between the different board members, students, parents, headmasters and teachers. Finally, the findings give evidence on the sensitive role and newly increasing power given to international schooling in the changing world order of the mid-twentieth century.