Objectives: Code style is an important aspect of text-based programming because programs written with good style are considered easier to understand and change and so improve the maintainability of the delivered software product. However teaching code style is complicated by the existence of many style guides and standards that contain inconsistent, low-level advice. The objective of the study is to support educators in helping students understand the nature of these inconsistencies by highlighting the rationale behind rules and their contextual nature. Participants: Seventy members of local and national computing science education (CSE) groups contributed in the exploratory phase. Fifty-two members of the ACM SIGCSE members mailing list and the Australasian Chapter contributed in the evaluation and refinement phases. These mailing lists represent a large, global population of CSE educators. Study Methods: We created, evaluated and refined an abstract code style model ("CSM") comprising a "Definition" and eight "Principles" for code style. For "CSM" creation, we took an exploratory approach based on an examination of the existing literature on code quality and style. To evaluate the level of community endorsement for the model, we analysed quantitative and qualitative data from an international survey questionnaire. We refined the "CSM" based on an analysis of the qualitative survey data. Findings: Analysis of the data from the survey indicated a strong level of support for the "CSM." Quantitative data revealed a general agreement with the "Principles," with responses for five "Principles" achieving a minimum of 84 percent agreement and all "Principles" achieving a minimum of 66 percent agreement. Qualitative data contained very few comments that voiced dissatisfaction with a basic aspect of the model. We found that barriers to developing a community-wide "CSM" were the strongly-held beliefs about style held by some and the abstract nature of the "CSM." Conclusions: The creation of an abstract set of "Principles" for code style is generally perceived by the community to be worthwhile and important and our approach has high levels of endorsement. A validated version of the "CSM" has been created.