Global education began as a movement to reform education and society in the 1960s and 1970s, through the work of educationalists, NGOs and also intergovernmental organisations. The global approach seeks to break with a curriculum that is grounded in subject knowledge and national culture. Instead, it seeks to explore alternative rationales for education and alternate futures. A second wave of global or international education occurred from the 1990s alongside discussion of globalisation, which brought the movement into mainstream education. One of the characteristics of global/international education is its ambiguity. It seeks to break with the past curriculum, but it is not always clear what will take its place. For some, preparing young people for the global market is foremost, while others aim to facilitate the child%s sense of himself or herself as a personal being. What is common to both is a desire to challenge the boundaries that previously gave meaning to education (especially theoretical knowledge and culture) and a search for meaning and opportunity in the projection of power beyond national boundaries. We conclude by questioning whether children are adequately prepared to act as global citizens without an education based on academic knowledge and an ethical framework that is culturally grounded.

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This study set out to better understand the changing links between geography and citizenship. Content analysis was conducted on eighteen high school world geography textbooks and state/national standards. Interviews were conducted with teachers and textbook authors. Five significant changes were noted: decline of national orientation and a greater focus on non-Western cultures; greater emphasis upon consumption over production; the accentuation of values clarification; increasing coverage of basic or prevocational skills; and standardization of format and content in textbooks. Many of these changes point towards a new cosmopolitan citizenship model, although some teachers and state social studies standards still see geography from a national perspective.

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