Difference and Conflict in Global Citizenship in Higher Education in Canada

Abstract

This paper presents a multi-voiced response to the question: how might conflict and difference be conceptualised in global citizenship education (GCE) imaginaries in Canada? It offers responses from six educators engaged with GCE research and practice in higher education institutions in Canada. The responses address different angles and issues related to difference and GCE, such as multiculturalism, (neo) colonialism, paternalism, indigeneity, internationalism, neoliberalism, benevolence and national identity building in Canada.

Digital Democracy and Global Citizenship Education: Mutually Compatible or Mutually Complicit?

“…Much of the GCE literature reacts against the dominance of neoliberal versions of citizenship (Pashby, 2008). Some of these GCE approaches lean toward liberal-humanist positions (e.g., Noddings, 2004;Nussbaum, 2002), while other approaches lean toward critical and post-critical positions (e.g., Andreotti et al, 2010;Pike, 2008b;Richardson, 2008;Shultz, 2007). Drawing on research that considers GCE in the contexts of the United States, Canada, and the UK, the analyses we review in this section mirror Mignolo's (2011) shine versus shadow and refl ect Andreotti's (2006) soft versus critical GCE framework.…”

“…However, given that, as Knight Abowitz and Harnish (2006) found, global citizenship is a fl exible discourse, it could easily be taken up in a liberal humanistic view or reframed through a neoliberal discourse to reinforce a monopolar imaginary. The ecological imaginary represents a space for both a critical GCE approach and for a soft GCE approach that extends the celebratory approach to multiculturalism and which fails to engage or critique cultural hierarchies, embedded racism, and imperialist roots (Andreotti et al, 2010). Marshall's (2009) study of agendas of GCE in the UK context also refl ects the broader dualism of neoliberalism versus more critical approaches.…”

‘Worldly’ pedagogy: a way of conceptualising teaching towards global citizenship

“…In the context of higher education, it refers to very diverse theoretical and methodological perspectives (Apple, Kenway, and Singh 2005;Bourn 2008;King 2004;Lingard and Ozga 2007). As indicated above, global citizenship education can be understood from at least two polarised points of view: (1) in a post-colonial perspective, as an attempt at Westernising the world Á applying Western values and concepts to non-Western contexts, a form of neo-universalism, and (2) in a perspective mindful of this 'danger', a multiculturalist approach underpinned by a respect for cultural difference and 'indigenous' scripts and by a promotion of local cultures and local knowledges Andreotti et al 2010;Spivak 1999). These approaches are premised on dichotomous epistemologies Á where knowledge and values are presented as binary alongside a West/non-West axis.…”

“…Broadly, and schematically at this stage, we locate our argument between two polar positions Á on the one hand, a post-colonial perspective in which the bridging of difference is seen as an export of Western values to the rest of the world (e.g. Andreotti et al 2010), and on the other, a relatively unproblematised multiculturalism which we think characterises many initiatives (e.g. see a review of this literature by Caruana and Spurling 2006).…”

Implications for equity and diversity of increasing international student numbers in European universities: Policies and practice in four national contexts

“…Specifically, in this paper we apply the larger project's heuristic, detailed in the methodology section, to map rationales for internationalisation in terms of general justification for and desires of internationalisation, and how diversity is conceptualized. Theoretically, this research draws on literature that points to three inter-related concerns: a) in the current climate of economic crises, democratic and social purposes of HE can be fused into economic imaginaries of internationalisation (Khoo, 2011); b) this normalized version of internationalisation can re-direct social and political values towards economic rationales that reproduce market expansionism (Rhoads and Szelényi, 2011); and c) this leads to a superficial and tokenistic approach to cultural diversity that steps over ethical questions around equity and denies the corresponding reproduction of global systems of inequities (Andreotti, 2009;Andreotti et al, 2009;Abdi and Shultz, 2008;Dower, 2003). The main contribution of this study to the field is its application of a novel heuristic based on three main discursive orientations (neoliberal, liberal, and critical) and four intersections (neoliberal-liberal, liberal-critical, neoliberal-critical, and all four).…”