Toward a framework for assessing the ‘global’ and ‘citizen’ in global citizenship education in Australia and beyond

Abstract

In addition to its influences across economic, geopolitical, and social spheres, globalization has given rise to the notion of a 'global citizen' who is able to understand a shifting and more internationalized world while moving fluidly through it. Education has been trumpeted as the means to achieve this globally-aware citizenry, leading to an entire field of global citizenship education (GCE). Here teachers are the linchpin, yet understandings of globally-focused coursework in teacher education remain underdeveloped. This paper explores the 'global' within core courses in initial teacher education in Australia and interrogates the kinds of 'citizens' to be cultivated. We begin in our pilot study by canvassing university courses across Australian Group of Eight universities, and locating more global aspects of the courses, where available. Based on initial findings, we offer a dualaxis conceptual framework for guiding an 'alternative future' for GCE within teacher education. We then use the framework in a focused coding of one teacher education syllabus as an exemplar of its potential utility for examining the ways in which future teachers are encouraged, or not, to engage with broader geopolitical, sociocultural, and economic forces of globalization in the PreK-12 schools in which they will eventually teach.

Cultivating critical global citizens through secondary EFL education: a case study of mainland China

“…In a sense, EFL education is a project of emancipation (Giroux, 2020) as the young generation strives to reach the world outside starting from a critical literacy journey that is strewn with ambivalence, complexity and creativity. This study also led us to conclude that dynamics and micro‐politics in the classroom can afford students agency, open mindset and collective identity to explore the global community as global citizens who take action upon our world (Baildon and Damico, 2011; Thomas and Banki, 2020). A critical‐literacy‐informed lens sheds light on how the integrated GCE–EFL agenda can be vigorously enacted to nurture the heart of young learners who are committed to social justice and sustainability of a better planet.…”

“…In the past decades, as globalisation has swept the world, discourse concerning global citizenship education (GCE) on the research agenda has sprung up as a response to its impact on socio‐economic, political and environmental interdependence (Thomas and Banki, 2020; Torres and Bosio, 2020). In the context of an ever‐increasingly interconnected world, educators are expected to assume the responsibility of fostering young people's global competencies for active and critical engagement with a more diversified and inclusive world (UNESCO, 2017).…”

Effect of Emotional Intelligence on Economic Teachers’ Self-Efficacy: The Moderating Role of Background Characteristics

“…The role of teachers in building a nation cannot be overemphasized (Timm & Barth, 2021). The development of a conscious citizenry to drive development depends upon the standard of a nation's education system (Thomas & Banki, 2021). Research, over the years, has indicated that teachers have great potentials to affect students' educational outcomes (Madigan & Kim, 2021;Madigan & Curran, 2021).…”