Global Citizenship Education and the Crises of Multiculturalism (original) (raw)

Global Citizenship Education in European Multicultural Contexts: Opportunities and Challenges

Global Citizenship Education, 2020

Deep societal changes resulting from globalization, increased cultural and ethnic diversity and the expansion of ICT (information and communication technology) have generated interest in the concept of global citizenship resulting in a growing body of literature on global citizenship education (GCE).Despite its attractiveness, GCE appears nevertheless conceptually fragile and difficult to implement in national contexts. This chapter provides a comparative perspective on conceptions and current challenges for citizenship education in three European countries: France, Switzerland and England. We analyze how contents associated with global dimensions are integrated into educational policies and curricula, thereby highlighting the similarities and differences between contexts. We illustrate how France and England have brought citizenship education and the promotion of ‘national values’ to the forefront of the political agenda, with the specific aim of preventing radicalization.Finally, ...

Global Citizenship Education: A short Introduction

In this paper, the concept of global citizenship education (GCED), which has increasingly gained importance beyond the English-speaking world in recent years, is presented and critically discussed. It is shown that the true meaning of the concept compared to related pedagogical directions such as global education, global learning or intercultural education is the emphasis of the citizenship concept. This means that GCED cannot be limited to the broadening of horizons, education for moral responsibility and for a global consciousness, but must also broach the issue of the unequal political balance of power and unjust structures on a global scale. Unlike other critical approaches, however, I advocate for not playing the structural and the individual level off against each other. On the contrary, with recourse to the sociologist Derek Layder, I support an integrative approach.

Diversity and Global Citizenship in Educational Policies: Debates and Prospects

This chapter examines how social and political contexts have influenced the definition and operationalization of citizenship education and multicultural education in curricula and address the debates surrounding GCE in culturally diverse societies. In nation-states characterized by diversity, there have been calls for a renewed focus on forms of civic education which promote national belonging and loyalty; such calls often target, either explicitly or implicitly, students from minority or migration backgrounds. An apparent binary is established, between those who see the primary purpose of citizenship education as nation-building, and those who want to promote global solidarity (Osler, J Curric Stud 43(1): 1-24, 2011, p. 2). The challenge for GCE is therefore to strike a balance between local, national and global belonging that ensures both national cohesion and a sense of global responsibility. We conclude by proposing that Global citizenship be taught through youth engagement which is connected with skills such as creativity, critical thinking, communication skills and citizenship skills.

Multicultural Education Review Diversity and Citizenship Education in Multicultural Nations

Immigration is increasing racial, ethnic, cultural, linguistics, and religious diversity in nations around the world, which is challenging existing concepts of citizenship and citizenship education. In this article, I argue that nation-states need to construct novel ideas about citizenship and citizenship education that accommodate new population groups but also foster national unity. Multicultural nation-states need to balance unity and diversity. I describe the challenges to citizenship caused by diversity and argue that citizenship education should be transformed and help students to develop reflective cultural, national, and global identifications and a commitment to take civic action that will make their communities, nation, and the world more democratic and cosmopolitan.

Rethinking Global Citizenship Education: A Critical Perspective

Global Citizenship Education Critical and International Perspectives, 2020

In this concluding chapter, we first consider some common obstacles to achieving the implementation of global citizenship education (GCE) identified in the different national contexts presented in the book and reiterate how different contexts call for diverse designs and operating strategies. Second, we examine why GCE has become a highly contested concept, subject to multiple interpretations and in which a wide range of conceptions and objectives coexist. Third, we present considerations for implementing GCE in educational policies and suggest operational-izing GCE within three distinct fields: (a) education for sustainable development (ESD); (b) inter/multicultural education; (c) citizenship education. We argue that this strategy could help link these fields and broaden students' understanding of the interconnections between issues related to citizenship, democracy, participation, identity, inter/multiculturalism, global issues and sustainable development. Finally, we synthetize current research on GCE and conclude by calling for more comparative and critical research to challenge GCE's underlying assumption of the univer-sality of Western paradigms and worldviews to embrace multiple ways of conceiving global citizenship.

Globalising Citizenship Education? A Critique of ‘Global Education’ and ‘Citizenship Education’

British Journal of Educational Studies, 2005

This article discusses, principally from an English perspective, globalisation, global citizenship and two forms of education relevant to those developments (global education and citizenship education). We describe what citizenship has meant inside one nation state and ask what citizenship means, and could mean, in a globalising world. By comparing the natures of citizenship education and global education, as experienced principally in England during, approximately, the last three decades, we seek to develop a clearer understanding of what has been done and what might be done in the future in order to develop education for global citizenship. We suggest that up to this point there have been significant differences between the characterisations that have been developed for global education and citizenship education. These differences are revealed through an examination of three areas: focus and origins; the attitude of the government and significant others; and the adoption of pedagogical approaches. We suggest that it would be useful to look beyond old barriers that have separated citizenship education and global education and to form a new global citizenship education. Their separation has in the past only perpetuated the old understandings of citizenship and constructed a constrained view of global education.

Conflations, possibilities, and foreclosures: Global citizenship education in a multicultural context

Curriculum Inquiry, 2015

This paper presents a critical framework applied to findings from a critical discourse analysis of curriculum and lesson plans in Alberta to examine the assumption that Canada is an ideal place for global citizenship education. The analysis draws on a framework that presents a critique of modernity to recognize a conflation within calls for new approaches to educating citizens for the twenty-first century. A main finding is that although the Alberta curriculum reflects important potential for promoting a critical approach, a conflation of different versions of liberalism often results in a false sense of multiple perspectives and a foreclosure of potential. The paper argues for a critical approach to global citizenship education that engages with the tensions inherent to issues of diversity rather than stepping over or reducing them to theoretically and conceptually vague ideas of universalism and consensus.

Curricular Convergences and Divergences Around Global Citizenship Education: Between the Universal and the Pluriversal

Handbook of Curriculum Theory and Research (Editors: Peter P. Trifonas & Susan Jagger), 2023

(ON-LINE FIRST VERSION, 6 APRIL 2023). ABSTRACT: The following pages reflect a critical inquiry, guided by postcolonial and decolonial analysis, into how and why a rising tide of global citizenship education has emerged in the early twenty-first century as a transversal curricular project, as well as a challenge to overwhelmingly and increasingly atomized curricula under neoliberalism. To what extent might it indeed unite or encompass previously established areas of curriculum designed to foster a shared sense of rights and responsibilities, respect for and solidarity with others, and interconnectedness on this planet? Is there consensus on what global citizenship education actually consists of? What are its potentialities and possible pitfalls? On the epistemological level, what kinds of knowledge does it give rise to, and what kinds might it suppress? For instance, where would a people’s right (as protected by the United Nations) to collective self-determination and emancipation from imperial and (neo)colonial forces fit into the cosmopolitan scheme of things under global citizenship? What are the ontological implications of global citizenship education? And finally, does this field of educational research and practice hold promise for generating ways of being that uphold cross-cultural social justice, inter-relationality, and interdependent coexistence in the broadest and most historically situated understandings of these terms? LINK: https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-3-030-82976-6\_47-1#chapter-info