In educational settings, we increasingly observe processes and phenomena that transcend the nation-state framework. Nationally organised educational systems are being challenged by cross-border phenomena that are manifested in transnational educational spaces (e.g. Adick 2018). Schools with an international profile can be seen as transnational spaces where young people participate within their biographies and construct their sense of belonging. This paper proposes an analysis of the construction and negotiation of belonging based on the educational biographies of graduates of an IB World School in the Lisbon region. Our question addresses how this participation in transnational spaces – in this case the international school – determines the young adults' construction of belonging. In our analysis, we observe a change in perspective on these constructions. The linear focus on nationally determined belonging has been deconstructed in order to comprehend hybridity and ambiguity as constitutive elements of belonging (e.g. Keßler & Schippling 2024). From a theoretical perspective, we refer, on the one hand, to biographical research in which theories of transnationalisation are brought into a constructive interrelationship with biographical theory (e.g. Schippling & Abrantes 2022). On the other hand, concepts of belonging are included, such as the concept of hybrid identities and cultures (e.g. Bhaba 1994). Methodologically, the paper is based on biographical interviews with graduates of an IB school, which were analysed using the documentary method of interpretation (e.g. Nohl 2017). Our study on constructions of belonging on educational biographies of graduates from an international school is located in the research programme of transnationalism (Pfaff 2018) and brings together three research lines in a constructive relationship: (1) research on schools as transnational educational spaces, (2) transnationally oriented research on childhood and youth and (3) transnational biographical research. Against this background the concept of belonging is developed as an analytical tool for the research programme of transnationalism for adequately analysing cross-border phenomena in education and its addressees.

--