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Global citizenship education

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Banks, J. A. (1 April 2008). "Diversity, Group Identity, and Citizenship Education in a Global Age". Educational Researcher. 37 (3): 129–139. doi:10.3102/0013189X08317501.</ref>[1]Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page). Unlike national citizenship, global citizenship does not denote any legal status,[2] and is not about allegiance to an actual form of government.[3] The emergence of regional economic blocs, supra-national political institutions, such as the European Union,[4] and the advancement of ICTs has intensified the perceived need for governments to try to ensure that national populations can compete in a highly competitive global jobs market.[5] This has led to the implementation of Global Citizenship Education (GCE) programs at primary, secondary, and tertiary level, although they are also run by independent NGOs, grass roots organizations, and other large scale educational organizations, such as the International Baccalaureate Organization and UNESCO.[6]

The most salient features of global citizenship education (GCE) are voluntary action that can extend from the local to international collectives; the practice of cultural empathy and an emphasis on multiple perspectives; and a focus on active participation with regard to social and political life, again at both the local and the global level.[7] As early as 1997, OXFAM UK designed a curriculum for global citizenship education (GCE) in which there was an emphasis on “the ‘active’ role of global citizens”.[8] Individuals and groups both inside and outside the educational sector may take action with regard to issues such as human rights, trade, poverty, health, and the environment, for example.[9] This is sometimes called the ‘global consciousness’ aspect of GCE.[10] However, organizations such as UNESCO have also begun to emphasize ‘global competencies’, including science and technology in their GCE curricula, with a view to “strengthen[ing] linkages between education and economic development”.[11]

Reasons for the emergence and development of GCE

In the present era of ever-intensifying globalization, the increasing recognition of global interdependence on the part of the general public has led to a higher degree of interest in global citizenship in educational discourse.[12] Though the socialization of students through modern schooling may have been oriented to the formation of citizens for the nation-state throughout the 19th and 20th centuries,[13] in the 21st century, the increasing interconnectedness and economic integration between nations has caused governments to rethink citizenship in global terms, for the sake of individual nations’ global competitiveness. Many universities worldwide have responded to the need for a globally oriented education by sending their students to study abroad in increasing numbers.[14] In fact, several Ivy League universities have recently announced that study abroad will soon become a mandatory degree requirement.[15]

It is not purely on economic grounds that governments in many developed nations promote GCE, but also for the sake of societal cohesion in the globalized era.[16] The fact that huge numbers of people are now migrating across national borders means that the sheer diversity of ethnic, religious, and linguistic groups, “has raised […] complex and difficult questions about citizenship, human rights, democracy, and education”.[17] Furthermore, an increasing level of interest in global issues related to sustainability, such as the resolution of socio-economic challenges and the world’s future energy arrangements,[18] for example, have also been incorporated into the domain of global citizenship education.[19]

Pedagogical aspect of Global Citizenship Education

Those who design GCE programs assume that students need to be able to function “within and across diverse racial, ethnic, cultural, language, and religious groups,[20] although some scholars believe that it is the task of global citizenship education to promote common values, for the sake of peace and prosperity.[21] This underlines the difficulty in designing GCE curricula that can help students conceive of ‘a single humanity as the primary level of community’ (Dill, 2013:11), while at the same time they acknowledge the different values of groups that have different collective identities.

In any case, there seems to be agreement among educators that “global citizenship is a learned and nurtured behavior”,[22] and the most widely-used classroom strategy for developing global skills is project-based learning. This pedagogical technique can be utilized in the case of almost any school subject, “[and] is the primary pedagogical strategy in the discourse of global competencies. Educators see it as an important method for developing the tools- technical and emotional- for success in the global society”.[23] With a view to nurturing students’ potential to be both learners and citizens, the project-based approach has been used successfully in the context of community-based learning, for example.[24]

Another distinctive pedagogical feature of GCE is that it implies learning and engaging in communicative practices outside the classroom, thereby “harnessing […] the educational force of the wider culture”.[25] If students are encouraged “to see themselves as political agents”,[26] they are more likely to acquire the knowledge, skills and abilities required to enable them to actually become agents of political change.[27] Another important element of the student-centered participatory nature of GCE, is that students, autonomously, through their engagement with others via Social Network Services, are creating their own forms of global citizenship through dialogue, learning, and action.[28] This is surely an important element, for example, in the activities of the grassroots organization, ‘GIN’ (Global Issues Network), established in 2003, that involves students and teachers in projects that aim to address global issues such as human rights, trade rules, and deforestation.[29] These student-driven, student-led projects combine both the ‘global consciousness’ and ‘global competence’ aspects of GCE.

GCE: ‘global consciousness’ and ‘global competencies’

Organizations implementing GCE programs, such as UNESCO, now emphasize the importance of expanding both students’ ‘global consciousness’ and ‘global competence’.[30] ‘Global consciousness’ represents the ethical or moral dimension of global citizenship, whereas ‘global competence’ “features a blend of the technical-rational and the dispositional or attitudinal” (Dill, 2013:11).

Some view global consciousness and global competence as being virtually synonymous (Grudinski Hall, 2007). As Schattle (2008), puts it, “civic competence as an ideal increasingly has been fused with a laissez-faire outlook on the world economy (p.82-83). The OECD, for instance, focuses on global competencies called ‘psychosocial resources’, of which there are three main types: “using tools interactively (technology and language skills), interacting in heterogeneous groups (cooperation, empathy), and acting autonomously (realizing one’s identity, conducting life plans, defending and asserting rights” (Dill, 2013: 12-13). It is clear that there is an almost infinite range of GCE projects that can potentially be run on these bases.

Objections to GCE

Some critics on the political right, in the US and the UK for example, believe that GCE might undermine religious education, promote secular values, and inculcate students with socialist ideology (Schattle, 2008). In contrast, others are deeply concerned by the that fact that the pedagogical approach; most global citizenship education curricula; and much of the discourse relating to GCE has been produced in particular Northern, Western contexts,[31] a fact which, for some, may be interpreted as a form of neo-colonialism. Furthermore, some believe that proponents of the individualistic liberalist and capitalist ideology that they claim is implicit in GCE curricula may be currently failing to acknowledge that its assumptions reflect a particularistic, not universal, moral vision (Dill, 2013). As Dill (2013) puts it, “the majority of the world experiences social and communal life not in terms of isolated individuals, but as collective identities and traditions. For many of these groups, the dominant forms of global citizenship education and its moral order will be experienced as coercive and unjust” (Dill, 2013: 33), an issue which some believe might be addressed more successfully if the local and the global are seen in a dialectical relationship to one another. This would mean viewing the implementation of a ‘global’ citizenship curriculum fundamentally as a local practice, “which diverse cultures will conceptualize and construct differently” (Myers, 2006:13).

References

  1. ^ Banks, J. A. (1 April 2008). "Diversity, Group Identity, and Citizenship Education in a Global Age". Educational Researcher. 37 (3): 129–139. doi:10.3102/0013189X08317501.
  2. ^ Schattle, 2008
  3. ^ Rapoport, 2009
  4. ^ Keating & Ortloff et al, 2009
  5. ^ Dill, 2013
  6. ^ Dill, 2013
  7. ^ Green, 2012
  8. ^ Davies, 2008
  9. ^ Green, 2012
  10. ^ Dill, 2013
  11. ^ UNESCO-IBE, 2008, cited in Dill, 2013
  12. ^ Schattle, 2008: 74
  13. ^ Dill, 2013
  14. ^ Tarrant, 2010; Asaoka & Yano, 2009
  15. ^ Tarrant, 2010
  16. ^ Banks, 2008
  17. ^ Banks, 2008:132
  18. ^ Starik & Kanashiro, 2013
  19. ^ Caruana & Spurling, 2007
  20. ^ Banks, 2004: 294
  21. ^ Pigozzi, 2006
  22. ^ Tarrant, 2010:442
  23. ^ Dill, 2013:14
  24. ^ Melaville & Berg et al, 2006
  25. ^ Catalano, 2013:3
  26. ^ Catalano, 2013:3
  27. ^ Catalano, 2013
  28. ^ Bourn, 2009
  29. ^ Dill, 2013
  30. ^ Dill, 2013
  31. ^ Andreotti and de Souza, 2012:18

Bibliography


  • Bourn, D. (2009) Students as Global Citizens. In: Jones, E. (ed) Internationalisation and the Student Voice: Higher Education Perspectives. London: Routledge
  • Burke Wood, P., 2008. The Impossibility of Global Citizenship. Brock Education, Vol. 17, pp.22-37.
  • Caruana, V and Spurling, N (2007) The Internationalisation of UK Higher Education: a Review of Selected Material, Higher Education Academy, pp.30-31.
  • Catalano, T., 2013. Occupy: A case illustration of social movements in global citizenship education. DigitalCommons@UniversityofNebraska-Lincoln
  • Davies, L., 2008. Global Citizenship Education. Encyclopedia of Peace Education, Teachers College, Columbia. http://www.tc.edu/centers/epe
  • Davies, I., Evans, M., & Reid, A., 2005. Globalizing Citizenship Education? A Critique of ‘Global Education’ and ‘Citizenship Education’. British Journal of Educational Studies, Vol.53, No.1, pp. 66-89
  • Jeffrey S. Dill. The Longings and Limits of Global Citizenship Education: The Moral Pedagogy of Schooling in a Cosmopolitan Age. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-136-69024-2.
  • Green, M., 2012. Defining Global Citizenship. http://globalhighered.wordpress.com/2012/03/11/global-citizenship/
  • Grudzinski-Hall, M.N., 2007. How Do College and University Undergraduate Level Global Citizenship Programs Advance the Development and Experiences of Global Competencies? Thesis, (PhD). Drexel University.
  • Keating, A., Hinderliter, O., & Philippou, S., 2009. Citizenship education curricula: the changes and challenges presented by global and European integration, Journal of Curriculum Studies, 41:2, pp.145-158.
  • Melaville, A., Berg, A.C., and Blank, M.J., 2006. Report: Community-Based Learning- Engaging Students for Success and Citizenship. Coalition for Community Schools.
  • Myers, J.P. (2006). Rethinking the Social Studies Curriculum in the Context of Globalization: Education for Global Citizenship in the U.S. Theory and Research in Social Education, 34(3), pp. 370-394.
  • Pigozzi, M.J., 2006. A UNESCO view of global citizenship education. Educational Review, Vol. 58, No.1, pp. 1-4.
  • Rapoport, A., 2009. A Forgotten Concept: Global Citizenship Education and State Social Studies Standards. The Journal of Social Studies Research, Vol.33, No.1, pp. 91-112.
  • Schattle, H., 2008. Education for global citizenship: Illustrations of ideological pluralism and adaptation. Journal of Political Ideologies, 13:1, pp.73-94.
  • Singh, M. and Shrestha, M. (2006) Immigration, Identity and Education for Social Justice: Robust Hope in this Era of Contested Cultural Globalisation. In: British Educational Research Association Annual Conference, 6-9 September 2006, University of Warwick.
  • Starik, M., and Kanashiro, P., 2013. Toward a Theory of Sustainability Management: Uncovering and Integrating the Nearly Obvious. Organization Environment, 26:7, pp.7-30.
  • Tarrant, M.A., 2010. A Conceptual Framework for Exploring the Role of Studies Abroad in Nurturing Global Citizenship. Journal of Studies in International Education, Vol. 14, No.5, pp.433-451.
  • Tully, J., 2005. Two Meanings of Global Citizenship: Modern and Diverse. The Meanings of Global Citizenship Conference. Liu Center and Trudeau Foundation, UBC, September 9-10, 2005.
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