Cosmopolitan Adult Education and Global Citizenship: Perceptions From a European Itinerant Graduate Professional Study Abroad Program

Abstract

Today’s sociopolitical and economic conditions require adults to engage in informed, culturally sensitive coexistence. Correspondingly, adult educators need to design experiences that help prepare learners for cross-cultural collaboration and socially responsible careers in a global age. Framed through cosmopolitanism and situated learning theories, the purpose of this study was to investigate adult learners’ sense and development of global citizenship through engagement in an innovative itinerant master’s degree program. The investigation of the experiences and contexts of this program’s community of practice provides important insight into adult global citizenship development and cosmopolitan instruction.

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“…This could suggest that the higher the IoAS, the more likely that their students would develop higher levels of GC and the reverse would likely be true. This finding also corroborated that of the earlier researchers (see, e.g., Coryell et al, 2014;Lilley, 2013;Simpson et al, 2014) that came up with similar findings. Based on the findings of this and other previous researches, therefore, it seems clear that for an educational institution to train students who are socially responsible, globally competent, and civically engaged globally, an internationalised academic team is vital.…”

“…Various scholars have already looked at the impact of IoHE on the GC of students in different contexts (see, e.g., Childress, 2010;Coryell, Spencer, and Sehin, 2014;Leask, 2013;Lilley, 2013). However, each of these scholars approached the issue of GC of students arising from internationalisation from different theoretical underpinnings and contextual perspectives.…”

Terminological “Communities”: A Conceptual Mapping of Scholarship Identified With Education’s “Global Turn”

“…The cosmopolitan education network also included a variety of topics related to global citizenship, globalization, and governance. Cosmopolitanism and global citizenship are often mentioned synonymously, or in tandem, with GCE portrayed as a way to promote cosmopolitanism among students, and global citizenship portrayed as the outcome of cosmopolitan education (Coryell et al, 2014). Internationalization of higher education also appears in this network, indicating that the scholarship surrounding cosmopolitan education in relation to higher education commonly uses GCE as a term that expresses concrete strategies related to internationalization and skill development rather than abstract notions of closeness or empathy (Caruana, 2014; Moskal & Schweisfurth, 2018).…”

We, the non-global citizens: Reflections on the possibilities and challenges of democratic global citizenship education in higher education contexts

“…I selected existing literature that, in my understanding, would respond to different perspectives on global citizenship and on GCE and I encouraged students to read the texts. The initial texts included, in order, an institutional policy, Coryell et al (2014), UNESCO (2014), Osler and Starkey (2003), Caruana (2014) and Andreotti (2006). Students read the texts in between meetings and, during the meetings, we clarified conceptual doubts and we examined the similarities and differences between different approaches.…”

“…After engaging and discussing some of the texts that could be considered aligned with neoliberal GCE (policy documentation; Coryell et al, 2014), the participants began to re-conceptualize the differences between the global and the non-global citizen. In the participants' accounts, the global dimension of citizenship appeared to be more exclusive than the national one.…”