- What Counts as a Global Issue in the IO
- The Five Fields of Inquiry
- Culture, Identity and Community: 6 Example Issues
- Beliefs, Values and Education: 6 Example Issues
- Politics, Power and Justice: 6 Example Issues
- Art, Creativity and the Imagination: 6 Example Issues
- Science, Technology and the Environment: 6 Example Issues
- How to Write a Global Issue Statement
- Connecting Your Works Through the Issue
- Common Global Issue Mistakes
Quick Answer
A global issue for the IB English individual oral must have significance on a wide scale, cross national borders, and have an impact felt in everyday local contexts. Phrase it as a specific, arguable issue, such as 'how surveillance is normalised as safety', not a topic like 'technology'. It must be presented in both of your works, through their content and their form.
What You'll Learn
- The IB's three tests: wide significance, crosses borders, felt in everyday local life
- The five fields of inquiry are a starting point for finding an issue, not a requirement
- Phrase the issue as a claim about how something happens, not a one-word topic
- The issue must appear in both works, through content and form, and be visible in both extracts
- Only the Language A oral uses a global issue; the Language B oral does not
What Counts as a Global Issue in the IO
In the English A individual oral you examine how one global issue is presented through the content and form of two works you studied, one extract from each. The IB describes a global issue by three features, and a strong issue also passes two practical tests of its own:
- Wide significance: it matters to large numbers of people, not just one family or one character
- Transnational: it is not confined to one country, even if your works are set in one place
- Felt locally: its effects show up in everyday lives and communities, which is where literature usually shows it
- Specific and arguable: 'how surveillance is normalised as safety' gives you something to prove; 'technology' does not
- Present in both works: each author must genuinely explore it, and you must be able to point to specific choices in each extract that present it
Watch Out
Avoid issues so broad they could apply to almost any text. 'Love', 'war' and 'identity' are topics. Ask what aspect of the topic your works argue about, who is affected and how.
The Five Fields of Inquiry
The Language A guides suggest five fields of inquiry to help you find and explore a global issue. They are a brainstorming tool, not an assessment requirement, and many good issues sit across two fields.
- Culture, identity and community: belonging, migration, family, gender, class, heritage and the pressure to conform
- Beliefs, values and education: religion, ethics, tradition, schooling and the values a society passes on
- Politics, power and justice: authority, rights, inequality, protest, propaganda and the law
- Art, creativity and the imagination: censorship, representation, beauty, storytelling and who gets to create
- Science, technology and the environment: ethics of progress, digital life, ecology and climate
Culture, Identity and Community: 6 Example Issues
Every example below is phrased the way a strong issue should be, with a note on why it works and the kinds of works it suits. The named works are illustrations only; check your own pairing with your teacher.
- How migrants negotiate belonging between two cultures: works well for novels or memoirs of migration paired with a photo series or interview project, since both show the pull of language, food and family
- The pressure on young people to perform an idealised identity online: pairs a coming-of-age novel with a body of social media posts or influencer adverts
- How minority languages are preserved or lost within communities: strong when one work uses code-switching or is studied in translation, and the other is a campaign or documentary
- How gender expectations decide who has the right to speak in a family: suits domestic novels and plays, compared with advertising that markets fixed roles to men and women
- How colonial history continues to shape national identity: for example, Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart alongside a speech or campaign that addresses colonial legacies
- The tension between individual ambition and family duty: found across many cultures, which makes it a natural fit for the Literature course pairing of a work in English with one in translation
Beliefs, Values and Education: 6 Example Issues
Issues in this field work best when your two works take different positions on a belief or value, giving you a real comparison.
- How religious authority is used to justify control within families: for example, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Purple Hibiscus, where a father's faith is bound up with his violence
- Whether education systems reward conformity over curiosity: pairs a school novel or play with a body of school prospectuses or education campaigns
- How consumer culture redefines a successful life: for example, Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman alongside a luxury brand's advertising campaign
- The moral cost of loyalty to a group: lends itself to war fiction, stories of gangs or cults, and political speeches
- How access to education is restricted by gender or class: works with memoir and with charity appeals, which often use one child's face to stand for many
- How tradition is presented as either wisdom or constraint: lets you compare a work that honours tradition with one that questions it
Politics, Power and Justice: 6 Example Issues
This is the most popular field, so precise phrasing matters even more if you want your oral to stand out.
- How surveillance is normalised as safety: for example, George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four alongside a government or technology company campaign about monitoring
- How propaganda turns complex conflicts into stories of heroes and enemies: strong for war poetry paired with recruitment posters or political adverts
- How institutions silence the victims they claim to protect: suits novels and plays about trials or scandals, paired with investigative journalism
- How economic inequality shapes access to justice: pairs a novel about poverty with a photojournalism series or a charity appeal
- How states control women's bodies: for example, Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, compared with a body of reproductive-rights campaign material
- How resistance is framed as either heroic or criminal: lets you compare how different works present protesters and rebels
Art, Creativity and the Imagination: 6 Example Issues
These issues suit students who enjoy analysing form, because the issue is often about how texts and images themselves work.
- Whether art can survive censorship: works with novels about banned books or silenced writers and with a body of street art
- How storytelling helps people survive trauma: suits memoirs, graphic novels and testimony projects
- How creativity is turned into a commodity: pairs a novel about an artist with advertising that borrows artistic styles
- How beauty standards are constructed through images: strong for a beauty-industry campaign paired with a novel or poems about body image
- Who gets to tell a community's story: compares an insider's account with an outsider's, such as a tourism campaign or documentary
- How humour is used to criticise power: works with satire, comic drama and political cartoons
Science, Technology and the Environment: 6 Example Issues
Issues here are easy to find in non-literary texts, so the challenge is usually finding a literary work that explores them in depth.
- The ethics of using human beings as means to scientific ends: for example, Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go, paired with biotechnology or pharmaceutical advertising
- How technology isolates people while promising connection: suits a near-future novel or play and a set of smartphone adverts
- How environmental damage falls hardest on the poorest communities: pairs a novel rooted in one place with an environmental charity's campaign
- How images make climate change feel either distant or urgent: strong for comparing documentary photography with corporate sustainability adverts
- Whether progress justifies destroying traditional ways of life: works with novels of industrialisation and with infrastructure or development campaigns
- How algorithms are presented as neutral when they are not: pairs speculative fiction with technology company launch materials
How to Write a Global Issue Statement
The IB does not require a formal statement, but you need one clear sentence that names your issue, because it anchors your introduction, your outline and the focus that Criterion C rewards. A reliable pattern is: how [a group, idea or value] is [shaped, presented, challenged] by [a force or tension]. The weak and strong versions below show the difference, followed by the steps to build your own.
- Weak: 'Technology'. Stronger: 'How surveillance is normalised as a form of safety and care'
- Weak: 'Gender'. Stronger: 'How gender expectations decide who has the right to speak in a family'
- Weak: 'Climate change'. Stronger: 'How images make climate change feel distant from wealthy audiences'
- Weak: 'Racism is wrong'. Stronger: 'How institutions present racial exclusion as neutral rules'
- 1Start from the works: list what both authors seem to care about, argue about or criticise
- 2Name the shared concern in a phrase, such as surveillance, migration or beauty standards
- 3Add the mechanism or tension: how does it happen, who benefits and who is harmed?
- 4Check the IB's three features: wide significance, crosses borders, felt in everyday local life
- 5Check both extracts: can you point to specific authorial choices in each that present the issue?
- 6Write your line of argument: one sentence on how the two works present the issue differently
Connecting Your Works Through the Issue
The issue should genuinely connect your two works, not force them together. The IO asks how the issue is presented through content and form, so the comparison has to include methods, not just messages.
- Both works should explore the issue substantively, and both extracts should show it
- Look for a difference in perspective or attitude: one work may expose what the other celebrates
- Compare form: a novel's narrative voice against an advert's imagery, or a poem's structure against a speech's rhetoric
- Plan links from each extract to its work as a whole, so the issue is shown to run through the work
- Ask whether the issue explains what is most interesting about both works; if not, it is probably the wrong issue
Pro Tip
If you are struggling to connect your works, try changing the issue before you change the works. A small shift in wording, such as from 'surveillance' to 'surveillance presented as care', often reveals a real connection.
Common Global Issue Mistakes
These are the errors that most often weaken an IO before it starts:
- Choosing a topic rather than an issue, such as 'war' or 'technology'
- An issue that only one work genuinely explores
- Drawing the issue from the author's biography or context rather than from the text
- Phrasing so abstract that you cannot point to it in the extracts
- Moralising about the issue instead of analysing how the works present it
- Drifting to a different issue halfway through the oral
Frequently Asked Questions
In the English A individual oral, a global issue is a matter that has significance on a wide scale, crosses national borders, and has an impact you can see in everyday local life. You choose one issue and examine how it is presented through the content and form of two works you studied. Examples include how surveillance is normalised or how migrants negotiate belonging.
Strong examples are specific and arguable: how surveillance is normalised as safety; how beauty standards are constructed through images; how religious authority is used to justify control in families; how environmental damage falls hardest on the poorest communities. Each names a mechanism, not just a topic, and can be found in both a literary and a non-literary work.
Start with what both works care about, name it in a phrase, then add the mechanism: how it happens and who is affected. A useful pattern is 'how [a group or idea] is [shaped or presented] by [a force or tension]'. Then check it against the IB's three features and make sure you can point to it in both extracts.
No. The five fields of inquiry are suggested in the guide to help you find and explore an issue; they are not a requirement and they are not assessed. Many good issues sit across two fields. What matters for your marks is that the issue is specific, genuinely present in both works and supported by close analysis of both extracts.
Yes, and you should if it is not working. If one work only touches the issue, or you cannot find specific choices in an extract that present it, change the issue or the extract early rather than forcing a weak connection. Talk to your teacher first, because changing works can affect which works you have left for Paper 2 and the HL essay.
No. The Language B individual oral, including English B, is based on a visual stimulus at SL or a literary extract at HL, linked to the five course themes: identities, experiences, human ingenuity, social organisation and sharing the planet. Global issues are only part of the Language A individual oral, in courses such as English A.
Specific enough that it could not describe almost any text, but broad enough to apply genuinely to both works. A quick test: if your issue would fit thousands of texts, it is too broad; if it fits only one scene in one work, it is too narrow. Naming a mechanism, such as 'normalised as safety', usually gets the balance right.