International Alliance for Invitational EducationWelcome to IAIE!
A democratic society is ethically committed to seeing all people as able, valuable, and responsible, to valuing cooperation and collaboration, to viewing process as product in the making, and to developing untapped possibilities in all worthwhile areas of human endeavor.
Because the International Alliance for Invitational Education® is dedicated to democratic principles, its mission is to enhance life-long learning, promote positive change in organizations, cultivate the personal and professional growth and satisfaction of educators and allied professionals, and enrich the lives of human beings personally and professionally.
How the Alliance Began:
On a summer afternoon in 1982 a group of 12 educators and related helping professionals from throughout the United States and Canada met on the campus of Lehigh University with Drs. Betty Siegel and William Purkey. Together, this group founded the Alliance for Invitational Education as a not-for-profit organization. From these fourteen charter members, the Alliance membership has grown to over six hundred professionals representing fifteen countries.
Invitational Education® , a theory of practice, maintains that every person and everything in and around schools and other organizations adds to, or subtracts from, the process of being a beneficial presence in the lives of human beings. Ideally, the factors of people, places, policies, programs and processes should be so intentionally inviting as to create a world in which each individual is cordially summoned to develop intellectually, socially, physically, psychologically, and spiritually.