Scholarship on globalization suggests that new forms of democratic citizenship and politics are emerging, yet the U.S. educational system remains resistant to global perspectives in the curriculum and continues to favors national identity and patriotism over learning about the world. A national approach to citizenship, which is the norm in U.S. social studies classrooms, is unable to explain the complexity of global issues and their impact on students' lives. The argument is made that a new orientation to social studies education is necessary in order to understand and address the effects of globalization. Two exemplary programs that teach about the world illustrate some of the problems and issues with global perspectives specific to the U.S. educational context. These cases indicate that, significant aspects of globalization are overlooked in the social studies curriculum.

This article outlines research directions for global citizenship education, by emphasizing the centrality of democratic goals for schools in the 21st century. Despite a significant shift in educational policies and practices towards addressing education that respond to the conditions of globalization, there is not a clear vision regarding its role in schools. Furthermore, curriculum reforms such as global citizenship education inevitably face the issue of whether to adapt to neoliberal tenets of privatization, high stakes testing and standards-based accountability, or to resist and challenge these policies with alternative, democratic visions of schooling. This article argues that for global citizenship education to reach maturity, there is a need for a programmatic research agenda that addresses the complex dynamics that globalization has introduced to schooling, particularly the challenges to teaching and learning for helping youth to make sense of the world and their role in it. An analysis of recent advances in research and practice in civic education is used as a starting point to advance directions for global citizenship education. Two key directions are suggested: to gain a more secure foothold in schools and the need to focus on a shared conceptual focus that helps researchers, practitioners and other stakeholders to access the same body of practices and knowledge.

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This article reports on the ways that 77 students in an international studies programme constructed meanings for global citizenship. The focus was on their personal meanings for the topic and how they articulated a global identity with their national civic beliefs. Data were collected from online discussion boards, written essays and 20 interviews. A key finding was that the students' political language for global citizenship, examined here in terms of purpose, membership and relationship with national citizenship, was predominantly a moral commitment framed in universal language. A second finding was that the students understood global citizenship as a heterogeneous and complex affiliation shaped by a range of sources. The implication is that citizenship education emphasizing a narrow notion of patriotism may encourage students to disengage from civic life because it does not represent their lived experiences and identities. Insights for making citizenship education practices more inclusive are discussed.

This research examined US high school students' thinking about economic and cultural globalization during their participation in an international education program. The findings mapped the students' categories for the two aspects of globalization and showed that the students' positions were shaped by relatively stable narratives characterizing the phenomenon. In general, the ethnic minority students were found to have more critical perspectives. Suggestions based on the findings for improving the teaching of globalization in international education programs are described.