This article defines how the message systems of international schools and the mechanisms of learning and control can be located in a trajectory from colonialism to global civil society. A discussion of Bernstein's message systems introduces how practice in international schools can be defined. The practice of international schools is framed theoretically by taking colonial, post-colonial, globalization and global civil reform perspectives of international education. The "International Education Matrix" emerges as a taxonomy for schools enacting international education. Ideologically international education, it is argued, espouses global civil society yet in practice this is not necessarily the case. (Contains 1 figure.)