Global citizenship as education for peacebuilding in a divided society: structural and contextual constraints on the development of critical dialogic discourse in schools

In post-conflict and divided societies, global citizenship education has been described as a central element of peacebuilding education, whereby critical pedagogy is seen as a tool to advance students’ thinking, transform their views and promote democratic behaviours. The present study investigates understandings of and attitudes to global citizenship and the challenges faced in its implementation. Teacher interviews highlight lack of time and resources for critical reflection and dialogue. Where opportunities for relevant training are provided, this can benefit critical engagement. Boundaries of educational systems and structures also influence pupils’ understandings of the issues as evidenced in questionnaire findings. We argue that critical pedagogies may be limited unless criticality and activism transcend local and global issues and are applied to schools themselves. Emotional engagement may be required for teachers to claim the space to critically reflect and share with colleagues within and beyond their sectors in order to enable critical discourse amongst pupils.     

The effect of short-term educational travel programs on environmental citizenship

Short-term study abroad is the fastest growing area of international education and there is increasing interest in the role of modified applications of this form (e.g. faculty-led, field/environmental, and/or educational travel) in influencing global citizenship. Using an empirical database of over 650 students registered for a study abroad course in sustainable development offered in Australia and New Zealand, we explore the effect of short-term educational travel programs on environmental citizenship. We also identify differences among key student characteristics (past study abroad experience, gender, and program destination) in influencing citizenry. Results show that participation in the educational travel program significantly moderates (decreases) the difference in environmental citizenship scores for first-timers (vs. those with past experience in study abroad) and program destination, but increases the difference in environmental citizenship for males vs. females. Implications for destination image and national brand marketing of environmental-oriented educational travel programs are discussed.     

Exploring How a Study Abroad and International Service-Learning Project Shaped Preservice Teachers’ Understanding of Humanizing Pedagogy

In an attempt to better prepare future teachers to fight against social injustice, support their culturally and linguistically diverse students and wrestle with social and educational complexities around the globe, many education programs have increased the number of study abroad programs and international service learning projects. In this qualitative study, we explored seven preservice teachers’ experiences related to humanizing pedagogy after participating in a study abroad program combined with an international service-learning project in a South African rural community. Analyzing multiple data sources such as interviews and reflective journals, we discovered that the preservice teachers grappled with the political, social, economic, and educational differences they encountered during the international project and wrestled with conflicting ideas and beliefs about poverty and language. They identified their relationships with students as catalysts to address these educational issues and their need to reverse systemic inequities. They built caring relationships with students in the community and developed additive perspectives the focused on the students’ community cultural capital. The preservice teachers expressed deep critical reflection and a desire to promote a more fully human educational world where students have the opportunities to enact their agency, their creativity, and their language and culture.     

论教育学的智慧

教育学是一门与其他学科不同的爱智之学。教育学关注的是教师和学生这一特定群体的生命状态,关注的是师生在教育生活中显现的教育智慧,即如何促使他人和自我生命成长与发展的智慧。教育学智慧不同于教育智慧,教育学的智慧就是关于“教育的智慧”的智慧,是把生命·实践的“教育智慧”作为热爱、追究、拷问、批判和反思的对象。教育学智慧的本质是对生命·实践的教育智慧的反思和系统化。教育学的智慧产生了特有的力量,表现为理解力、反思力、想象力、转化力、创造力等。教育学的智慧来源于理论与实践的双向互动双向建构,来自于“置身式的爱”这样一种对待生命的态度,来自于对教育生活经验与细节的敏感与体悟。从根本上说,教育学的智慧是人类智慧的故乡之所在。     

Creating critical‐democratic citizenship education: empowering humanity and democracy in Dutch education

Dutch society and educational policy see citizenship education as being an important task of education. The first section of this paper discusses the concept of citizenship and citizenship education, and analyses educational developments in the Netherlands. Following on from this introduction the second part of the paper puts forward a critical democratic pedagogy of citizenship education. With this proposed democratic pedagogy in mind, the third and final part of the paper goes on to analyse the discourses and developing practices of citizenship education in the Netherlands, and proposes a number of new possibilities.     

Letting the village be the teacher: a look at community-based learning in Northern Thailand

ABSTRACT

Higher education in the U.S. sees global learning as critical to student development. Over the last seventy years, study abroad has emerged as the method of choice for teaching global knowledge and intercultural competence. In this context, community-based global learning programs are a type of program where students live in communities to learn directly from people and place. Looking at a field studies program in Northern Thailand, this paper explores the educational mobility of study abroad and impact on host communities. It shares findings on the experiences of two communities who have hosted study abroad students for almost twenty years. Best practices and recommendations for faculty and institutions running community-based global learning programs are shared, including the centrality of community voice in curriculum, benefits of applying a range of pedagogical methods on course, the critical nature of adequately preparing students for cultural immersion, and compensating communities justly for their work.     

Here I am Now! Critical ethnography and community service-learning with immigrant and refugee undergraduate students and youth

Here I am Now! is the title a multi-ethnic group of immigrant and refugee undergraduate students and neighboring urban Vietnamese and Cambodian refugee youth gave to their participatory photography installation. The exhibit was the culmination of undergraduate students’ participation in a series of Community Service-Learning (CSL) courses offered through CIRCLE (Center for Immigrant and Refugee Community Leadership and Empowerment) at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. While CSL has become an established educational practice at most US universities campuses, little research has been conducted viewing the educational impact of this pedagogy on diverse student populations. The majority of the scholarship focuses on the experiences of white middle-class students engaged with communities from unfamiliar and different socio-cultural, racial, ethic and economic backgrounds.

This paper examines how immigrant and refugee undergraduate students understood their participation in a creative community service-learning experience where they mentored youth from familiar and similar ethno-cultural contexts. To understand this meaning-making process I employed critical ethnographic approaches and analyzed student narratives and interviews. Through the prisms of critical pedagogy, situated learning theory, and funds of knowledge concept, I viewed the higher education context, analyzed the situation under study and developed an emerging framework for CSL pedagogy with diverse communities. These theories inform the view that culturally relevant pedagogy emphasizing peer-learning, critical thinking, artistic potential and community resources offers diverse undergraduate students alternative and creative spaces of critique and possibility in their higher education and community service-learning experiences.     

Cultivating critical global citizens through secondary EFL education: a case study of mainland China

This paper examines the enactment of critical literacy pedagogy in secondary English language teaching in the face of globalisation. This qualitative case study signals that global citizenship education (GCE) and English as a foreign language (EFL) teaching can converge through offering equitable and globally contextualised learning opportunities. The overarching themes presented here challenge the dominance of instrumentalist orientations of EFL education in mainland China today while mobilising pedagogical choices that affirm students' local and lived experiences in relation to international socio-political issues. Findings provide EFL educators nuanced insights into how critical global literacies are extended through critical understandings of literacies, interconnections from a personal to a global level, and opportunities for social actions on multicultural issues, thus fostering globally competent and bilingual learners who critically engage with the contested terrain of an increasingly globalised world.     

Confucius as a Critical Educator: Towards Educational Thoughts of Confucius

This paper is a cross-cultural comparative study in education philosophy. A comparative and philosophical approach is used to interpret texts from the Analects of Confucius and to find connections with ideas of critical educators. In comparing Confucius’ educational thought with that of Paulo Freire, John Dewey and other theorists in critical pedagogy, this paper finds four common threads between Confucian concepts of education and critical pedagogy: mutual learning, integration of theory and practice, importance of reflection in teaching and learning, and democratic purpose of education. By presenting these interwoven themes, this paper contributes to a cross-cultural dialogue on global understanding in education.     

Investigating contingency in school history: an aid to rich,meaningfully critical citizenship?

A common charge levelled at English and Welsh citizenship education, whether taught as a separate subject or incorporated into other disciplines, is that it encourages compliance more than it inspires critical thought. There is room within the compulsory citizenship framework, however, for teachers to advance genuinely critical attributes in students. My aim here is to suggest that school History has particular potential for this, and to argue more specifically that the historical study of contingency in human affairs could advance a rich, meaningfully critical form of citizenship that contributes to Gutmann's ideal of ‘conscious social reproduction’. Gutmann's vision for citizenship centres on the idea that through critical scrutiny of present norms and institutions, students can be equipped to take part in the collective shaping of their future. Drawing on the work of social and political theorists as well as that of educationalists and philosophers of history, I argue that contingency can be rigorously and fruitfully investigated in school History, and that this could – at best – help students to develop three vital capacities for critical citizenship and conscious social reproduction: discernment of historical possibility, subtle normative reflection, and enriched political imagination.     

可欲且可行的全球公民教育实践路径:苏格兰“全球故事情节法”探析

研究发现,全球公民教育的热度不高与其实践层面的三重困境有关。"全球故事情节法"之所以成为苏格兰实施全球公民教育的最有效路径,正是源自于其对实践困境的有效回应:其一,政府对全球公民教育的倡导营造了相对宽松的政策环境,"全球故事情节法"与现有课程体系相融合获得了灵活的实践空间,实现了安全的课程地位。其二,通过对"故事情节法"和教育戏剧的运用,使全球社会和全球议题通俗化,实现了学生的体验式学习,弥合了学生认知能力和认知需求间的矛盾。其三,西苏格兰发展教育中心通过职业培训传播了理论知识和实践能力,构建了围绕全球公民教育的共同体,为教师提供了教学支持。     

Pedagogies for active citizenship: Learning through affective and cognitive domains for deeper democratic engagement

This paper reports on a two-year study that explored teachers' pedagogical approaches when implementing an active citizenship curriculum initiative in New Zealand. Our aim was to identify pedagogies which afforded potential for critical and transformative citizenship learning. We define critical and transformative social action through a fusion of critical pedagogy and Dewey's notion of democratic education. Data included teachers' classroom-based research as well as classroom observations and interviews with students. Our study suggested that citizenship learning through both affective and cognitive domains can provide for deeper opportunities for students to experience critical and transformative democratic engagement.     

A comparison of attitudes related to global citizenship between Korean- and US-educated Korean university students

This study compared the perceptions of Korean-national university students studying in Korea and in the US regarding global citizenship. The study sample consisted of two distinct groups: students who had received their education exclusively in Korea and students who were born in Korea but had studied in the US since secondary school. By applying latent mean analysis, the study found that the US-educated Koreans had higher levels of trust and national identity, whereas the Koreans had higher levels of social responsibility and participation. The results suggest that university students of the same nationality who experience different social environments may perceive global citizenship in dissimilar ways. For future investigations, we suggest a longitudinally designed experimental study, which may reveal a causal relationship between the social experiences of university students who study abroad and their perceptions of global citizenship. In addition, future investigations should consider how these students are assimilated into and adapt to diverse interactions on multicultural campuses.     

Education for Citizenship: Interethnic Pedagogy and Formal Education at Escola Criativa Olodum

This paper depicts how an Afro-Brazilian carnival group turned community development organization addresses socioeconomic inequalities by educating a traditionally marginalized population as part of their larger goal of the preservation of black culture and full citizenship. Specifically, it examines the theory and practice of interethnic pedagogy, a unique approach to critical pedagogy specifically focused on incorporating the experiences and values of subaltern groups. Through ethnographic passages and analysis it examines their work in formal education at Escola Criativa Olodum in Salvador, Bahia and shows how Afro-Brazilian teachers, students and administrators engage in learning experiences while they strive to understand and redefine their own educational processes and outcomes. Lastly, through the lens of racial formation theory, it attempts to explain how these educators and activists periodically adjust their methods and considers their potential impact on Brazilian society.Judith King-Calnek has over 20 years experience of research in Brazil. She holds a Ph.D. in comparative education and anthropology from Columbia University Teachers College as well as two master’s degrees (curriculum and teaching and anthropology and education) from the same institution, and a BA from Pomona College. She taught anthropology at Manhattanville College in Purchase, NY, and presently teaches anthropology, history and theory of knowledge at the United Nations International School, where her children are students. Other publications have focused on differentiating curriculum for the gifted, world hunger, distance teaching, and evaluations of U.S. funded non-formal education projects overseas. In addition to her teaching and researching, Judith King-Calnek pursues her long time love of Brazilian music and jazz as a radio programmer and producer in the New York area, for which she has received numerous awards. She is fluent in Portuguese and Spanish.     

On the need to strengthen political-critical thinking in history education

The past twenty years have seen a dramatic change in the research of history education and its meaning in the Western academic world. Basically, there are three productive research directions: (1) a growing interest in cultural studies; (2) an exploration of various educational paths towards shaping a historical consciousness; and (3) cognitive and psychological research. Situated within the second group, but drawing on knowledge that has been gathered in all three research areas, this article focuses on the need to foster a political-critical dimension in the context of history education. The author proposes the implementation of a pedagogy of subversion in history teaching practices. Seeking to unsettle the students’ mind and ignite their intellect, this pedagogy supports the strengthening of political-moral thinking through the use of particular history content and teaching practices that take into account youthful rebellion and typical juvenile desire to fix the world. Adolescent resistance to education can thus be harnessed as a content tool, providing an object for the student to contend with personally as part of his or her maturation and individuation process. The desired outcome of such pedagogical practices is the development of an effective historical consciousness that enhances autonomous thinking, reflective skills and empathetic capabilities among young people. The future use of these capabilities is the ultimate aim of all education towards democratic citizenship.     

‘This is the beginning of my life educationally’: older (50+ years) working class adults’ participation in higher education in Scotland,through the lens of critical educational gerontology

This paper reports on original research where the primary objective was to critically explore the learning experiences of older (50+ years) working class adults in the context of a new university. Semi‐structured interviews with 10 older learners engaged in a range of study in a new university in the west of Scotland were utilised. This methodology was adopted to bring their voices to the fore, in recognition that these have been under‐represented in educational research to date. A main outcome of the study was that theorising of widening participation practice and pedagogy as it relates to older learners may be significantly developed from insights afforded by critical educational gerontology (CEG) (older adult education) and its central concern with empowerment of marginalised older adults. It is concluded that CEG’s theoretical perspectives and pedagogic practices—critical gerogogy—may inform and shape more responsive widening participation practices that aim to support under‐represented groups. This is particularly evident for older working class students whose formative educational experiences were predominantly characterised by severely limited choice and opportunity. CEG has significant implications for widening participation practice in offering a distinctive, holistic educational philosophy and creative pedagogical approach.     

Students positioned as global citizens in Australian and New Zealand universities: A discourse analysis

ABSTRACT

Higher education plays a critical role in producing society’s leaders by preparing graduates with the knowledge, capabilities and disposition to appreciate diversity and address social injustice. Many higher education institutions within and beyond Australia have aimed to internationalise their curricula to ensure students achieve capabilities that enable them to contribute to an evolving global knowledge economy. However, the inclusion of global citizenship as a graduate attribute embedded in internationalised curricula, and the processes to achieving this, are highly contested. Guided by a discourse analysis approach, this study explored how Australian and New Zealand universities position students as global citizens in public web pages. Publicly available policy and other text documents on university websites relating to internationalisation and/or global citizenship were collected and screened. Those that met inclusion criteria were analysed to identify discourses and to further understand how higher education institutions describe their plan to advance and achieve global citizenship agendas. Two key themes were generated: expressions of internationalisation policy and global citizenship as an obscured educational intention. These findings are further elaborated, providing an outline of the possible implications for higher education policy and practice relating to the internationalisation of curriculum for global citizenship and its potential impact on educators and students.     

Old World Teaching Meets the New Digital Cultural Creatives

This article sets forth a conceptual, philosophical and social agenda for art and design education in the twenty‐first century, considering how a set of beliefs articulated within US art education discourse interfaces with conceptualisations about emerging global digital media and technologies. Discussion highlights selected writings in the USA primarily, writings about art education technology orientations; and then describes the professional experiences and insights of the writer as she embraced, implemented and made sense of technology in terms of her own multicultural educational orientation in a US university. Based on these insights, this writer proposes that technology pedagogy is not actually about digital technologies per se, but about what we intend to do with new technologies in the twenty‐first century. Old notions of art as an embodiment of things that matter and a testament to the human condition are now connected to contemporary ideas about citizenship, caring and public engagement. In this trajectory, citizenship education is then posed as central to a future vision of art education in the digitally connected classroom. Caveats and limitations of the educational and transformative power of new global electronic media being set forth in this article are also noted, including paradoxical self‐contradictions within the orientation itself.     

(Dis-) Locating the transformative dimension of global citizenship education

Despite a groundswell of evidence for transformative education, manifestos for ‘transformative pedagogy for global citizenship’ remain under-theorized and pay limited attention to implications for practice. This paper connects theory and practice through analyzing a curriculum development project that sought to produce a framework for ‘engaged global citizens’. It considers the political and philosophical framings of the self and other, citizen and world, that underlie this empirical work, especially with reference to reflexivity, hermeneutics, democratic engagement and co-production. The resultant pedagogical framework, based upon concepts of transformative learning, attempted to undercut the homogenizing tendencies within global citizenship education (GCE). This discussion highlights the tensions and reifying effects of educational frameworks such as the Teaching Excellence Framework in the UK and the proposed framework for ‘global competence’ in the 2018 Programme for International Student Assessment. Evidence is presented that frameworks which attempt to make explicit educational phenomena and processes are overdetermined by efficacy and metrics that become perverse ends in themselves. While the anticipated project output here was the framework itself, the substantive output was, in fact, practical: namely the ongoing deliberation and reflection upon the discourses that both do and undo the task of locating the transformative dimension of GCE.