Educating for ‘glocal’ perspectives at Sultan Qaboos University: Studying students’ perceptions after studying a global citizenship education course

Abstract

Today, globalisation expands the affiliation of the individual from a national level to an international level. Global citizenship has been regarded as an important outcome for students in major universities around the world, yet there is little literature about how it is integrated at universities in the Arab world, although some of them emphasise it in their policies. This article reports on how one Omani University, namely Sultan Qaboos University, interpreted and implemented global citizenship education in their undergraduate programmes. Particularly, this study seeks to identify the perceptions of students who studied a course entitled Global Citizenship Education in the academic year 2018–2019. The data were collected using two tools: a questionnaire which was administered to a sample consisting of 49 students and semi-structured interviews with 10 students. The data analysis was conducted by calculating the medium for the questionnaire and by employing an inductive process where the data were coded and then the themes that emerged from the data were highlighted. The results indicated that Omani University students had different perceptions of global citizenship and their perspectives tended to be more cosmopolitan and humanistic . In addition, they highlighted the impact of the course on developing three dimensions of global citizenship education: the cognitive, socioemotional and behavioural dimensions.

Caring, Sharing and Giving without any Hesitation: Teacher Educators’ Perceptions and Practices of Citizenship Education at Sultan Qaboos University in Oman

“…Unlike Western scholars, Arab scholars argued that "citizenship" is a word imported from Western languages and there is no word in Arabic dictionaries that is equivalent to it (Alkhashit, 2007). According to AlMaamari (2002), citizenship linguistically is derived from Al Watan (homeland), which is the "place where an individual settles" and, by dwelling in Al Watan, the individual becomes Mowatan (citizen). However, politically, the liberal Western perspective on citizenship has been dominant in the majority of Arabic literature about citizenship (e.g.…”

Are schools in Oman planning to produce global citizens? A critical analysis of schools’ visions and missions

“…Although there has been great focus on GCED in schooling in international literature, we could say that GCED generally has been neglected in Oman as an area of research. Overall, there were some Omani studies focussed on GCED in higher education and universities (Al-maamari, 2020a, 2020b), with few counted studies focussed on schooling (Al-maamari, 2014; Ibrahim & Almarzouqi, 2020). This study comes as a response to this neglect and contribute to the Omani literature on GCED as well as adding to the international literature.…”