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Subject Specific Changes for 2025/2026
Subject Specific Changes for 2025/2026
No more categories for Language and Literature
No more categories for Language and Literature
No more time-frame limitations (e.g. 10 year History rule or 5 year Economic rule)
No more time-frame limitations (e.g. 10 year History rule or 5 year Economic rule)
IB EE Subject-Specific Pathways
IB EE Subject-Specific Pathways
For the Interdisciplinary Pathway, students must use both Subject-Specific Guidances if they are combining subjects from two different groups.
For example, if a student is writing an essay that combines Economics (Group 3) and Biology (Group 4) they must follow the Subject-Specific Guidance from both Group 3 and Group 4. Their essay is guided by both.
A student who writes an Interdisciplinary Pathway essay within one subject group. For example, say, Economics and History, then they only use the Group 3 guidance, since both subjects fall within that group.
An extended essay in language A must be based on one or more clearly dened text(s), such as:
• a study of a single literary or language text, originally written in the language in which the essay is written
• a comparative study of more than one literary or language text
• a comparative study of a literary and a language text.
An extended essay in language B gives you an opportunity to develop your knowledge and
understanding of the second language you are studying, and to demonstrate your understanding of the culture associated with that target language. Possible areas to explore include language use, literary analysis or a study of the culture itself.
An extended essay in any of the science subjects—biology, chemistry, computer science, design technology, physics, and sports, exercise and health science—offers the opportunity to investigate and collect primary or secondary data, based on a focused research question. You collect evidence using scientific methodology. Your findings must lead to a valid, evidence-based conclusion.
An extended essay in the individuals and societies subjects explores a question that connects to human experience and behaviour across time and space. If you are interested in developing a critical understanding of the complexities of our social world and who we are as humans, an extended essay in individuals and societies will be a very rewarding choice. The subjects in this group include business management, digital society, economics, geography, global politics, history, philosophy, psychology, social and cultural anthropology and world religions.
An extended essay in the arts allows you to explore a topic of particular interest to you in dance, in music, theatre or visual arts. It can include a wide range of dynamic creative practices through which human beings convey ideas, communicate experiences, values and impressions, and develop identity. Any essay in this area should integrate the analysis of primary sources—such as artworks, live performances, music concerts, play texts, screenplays, scripts and scores—with disciplined research informed by scholarly methods, and provide a critical evaluation of the results. Secondary sources, such as books, critiques and magazine articles, interviews, subject journals and websites, must be used as evidential support for your argument.
Separately from the interdisciplinary pathway, you can do a subject-focused extended essay in one of the two DP subjects that are cross-disciplinary: Environmental Systems and Societies (ESS) and literature and performance. The transdisciplinary lens of ESS brings together two subject groups: individuals and societies and the sciences. Meanwhile, literature and performance combines studies in language and literature and the arts.
International Baccalaureate Organization. (2025). Extended Essay Guide: First assessment 2027. International Baccalaureate Organization.
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