The global dimension in education and education for global citizenship: genealogy and critique

Abstract

Encouraged by transnational organisations, curriculum policy makers in the UK have called for curricula in schools and higher education to include a global dimension and education for global citizenship that will prepare students for life in a global society and work in a global economy. We argue that this call is rhetorically operating as a 'nodal point' in policy discourse -a floating signifier that different discourses attempt to cover with meaning. This rhetoric attempts to bring three educational traditions together: environmental education, development education and citizenship education. We explore this new point of arrival and departure and some of the consequences and critiques.

‘Going Glocal’: a qualitative and quantitative analysis of global citizenship education at a Dutch liberal arts and sciences college

“…Global citizens understand the interconnection of all living things (Appiah-Padi 2001), but also the inequalities and the disparities that characterize today's world; and they have the knowledge, attitudes and skills to address these disparities. New domains of education that prepare young people to tackle these global challenges successfully have been classified as global citizenship education or education for global citizenship (GCE/EGC), and they have been introduced all over the world (Andreotti et al 2015;Mannion et al 2011;Tchimino 2008). Definitions and understandings of the concept differ strongly, but UNESCO, in a recent influential report, stated that ''Global Citizenship Education (GCE) is a framing paradigm which encapsulates how education can develop the knowledge, skills, values and attitudes learners need for securing a world which is more just, peaceful, tolerant, inclusive, secure and sustainable '' (UNESCO 2014, 9).…”

The contribution of CLIL to learners’ international orientation and EFL confidence

“…Our results suggest that the EFL CLIL approach in these three countries did not produce a significantly greater increase in learners' international orientation and language confidence than the mainstream approach: CLIL pupils developed positively, but so did mainstream pupils, and largely to the same degree. Assuming that there was a general inclusion of a global dimension in the curriculum (Mannion et al 2011), CLIL learners did not develop any particular advantage over non-CLIL pupils as far as international orientation was concerned; rather, it appears that there was a positive development across the grammar schools on this construct.…”

Maintaining Global Citizenship Education in Schools: A Challenge for Australian Educators and Schools

“…Policies and approaches vary from country to country, because of differing national contexts and perspectives. This is reflected in the variety of approaches to GCE being taken in schools in the many countries surveyed by UNESCO (2014), across Europe (Bourn, 2016), and the UK (Mannion et al, 2011;Oxley & Morris, 2013;Marshall, 2011). The range noted here includes economic, or technical-economic, cultural, political, global social-justice or rights based agendas.…”

“…Economic and cultural aspects, rather than the political were foregrounded in the UK global citizenship curriculum, according to Mannion et al (2011). Another way is to consider two distinct agendas -the technical-economic and the global social-justice -which Marshall (2011) argued was needed "to expose the [dominant] normative and instrumentalist agendas at play" (p. 412) in reflecting on the UK school experience of a globally oriented curriculum.…”