Educating for Global Citizenship

A Youth-Led Approach to Learning through Partnerships

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• Publisher: MUP Academic Digital
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780522861006
• eBook ISBN: 9780522861013
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Globalisation
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book explores educating for global citizenship in three parts. The first part identifies the field of global citizenship. The second part identifies a youth-led learning approach to global citizenship. It provides an in-depth and original analysis of the Global Connections program introduced into Australian schools and Indonesian communities over the last decade by Plan International Australia, through a case-study approach. Drawing on data from this project and further analysis, the third part outlines the principles behind learning for global citizenship.
Finally, these principles are woven together in a model of inter-agency collaboration between schools, higher education institutions, and non-government agencies. We invite you to explore this fascinating terrain with us.
This book is the work of a team. It reflects a long-term partnership between one international NGO, young people, and two universities.

Educating for Global Citizenship

Contents

Foreword

Acknowledgements

Contributors

Introduction: Educating for global citizenship

Ani Wierenga

Part 1: Contexts of global citizenship

1 Global citizenship as a contemporary curriculum challenge

Annette Gough

2 The certainty of change: Community engagement and global citizenship for international non-government organisations

Glenn Bond

3 Education that equips young people in changing times

Johanna Wyn

4 Citizenship beyond status: New paradigms for citizenship education

Samantha Ratnam

Part 2: Global Connections: A case study

5 Linking young people through Global Connections

Victoria Kahla

6 Embedding learning and research in development practice

Jose Roberto Guevara

Part 3: Global citizenship through learning partnerships

7 Insights from the new young global citizens

Renée Christensen

8 Learning through connections

Ani Wierenga

9 ‘People there pick-pocket and stuff, I read it in the paper’: Challenging students’ perceptions across countries

Sally Beadle

10 Youth-led learning

Ani Wierenga, Jose Roberto Guevara and Sally Beadle

11 The promise of cross-sectoral education partnerships

Jeff King

Conclusion: Learning through global citizenship

Jose Roberto Guevara

Index

Foreword

Such political leaders as Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and Tony Blair have all espoused the importance of promoting the concept of global citizenship, of people of all ages being globally responsible and that we are all part of the same human race as world citizens. You can go to many universities around the world today and a key theme they are promoting in response to a competitive global economy is the importance of equipping their graduates to see themselves, and to be equipped to be, responsible global citizens. An increasing number of international non-governmental organisations are proposing that for people, particularly the young, to be concerned and active for social change, they need to see themselves as global citizens. A number of Western countries also now make direct reference to themes such as global citizenship within the school curriculum. In Wales, for example, global citizenship alongside sustainable development is one of the four key cross-curricular themes.

Yet many of these pronouncements, be they from politicians, policy-makers, universities or NGOs, are often based on a rather shallow rhetoric without any discussion or debate as to how they perceive the term ‘global citizenship’ or whether it is an appropriate term to use as a way of describing young people’s sense of place and engagement in global issues.

What cannot be denied is that educational systems around the world are recognising that globalisation is posing major challenges for education, not only how it is organised but also as to its content. The knowledge that young people need today to make sense of the globalised world cannot be simply reduced to a number of curriculum subjects. The skills required to deal with an increasingly complex, uncertain and insecure world are often in direct contradiction to what is taught in a school classroom or a university. Globalisation also leads to a more direct exposure to the inequalities in the world and challenges us on an individual basis as to what is our response. This leads us therefore to ask ourselves what is the values base on which we respond to and see injustices and divisions in the world.

Education for global citizenship therefore requires serious research and analysis if it is recognised as an important component of learning and engagement in a global society of the twenty-first century.

While there has been a growing body of literature in recent years around themes of globalisation, global citizenship and higher education, much of it has been in response to specific policy initiatives or as been focused on reviewing differing theoretical viewpoints and approaches.

This important volume is one of the first in the growing literature on global citizenship that moves beyond both the rhetoric around policy and a summary of differing interpretations to demonstrate the connections between theory and practice. It brings together research and reflections from a range of Australian perspectives on how young people relate to the concept of global citizenship. It further aims to outline a theoretical framework for the concept of education for global citizenship. Finally it reviews evidence from partnerships between schools and young people between Australia and Indonesia led by the NGO, Plan International.

Learning and engagement in international development and global issues in most Westernised societies, has since the 1970s, tended to have been led by NGOs. While this has often meant that independent civil society voices ensured that a range of views were being promoted, there was a tendency to encourage engagement to support pre-determined outcomes.

International partnerships have also become increasingly popular as a response to the need for young people to understand wider world issues and concerns. Direct experience and intercultural dialogue can challenge individuals’ perceptions not only about the ‘other’ but also about themselves.

The discourses around global citizenship and its antecedents of development and global education, while growing since the 1980s, have tended to be on the margins of mainstream educational debates. Indeed the whole area of development education, despite having considerable funding in Europe and at differing times, depending on the complexion of the government, in Australia, Japan, New Zealand and Canada, has been the subject of very little research and wider debate. This has started to change in recent years, yet it is difficult to identify major publications that have combined empirical research with theoretical reflection in debate on development and global education. This edited volume is one of the first to locate research on international partnerships between young people and schools within the discourses around global citizenship and development and global education. Although there have been a number of studies that have had an evaluation focus and have been related to the practice of NGOs, the research referred to in this volume, because of its more independent nature, enables a more discursive and exploratory approach.

Where there has been discussion on global citizenship education in North America and Europe there has been a tendency to locate the debates within specific curriculum needs and opportunities. As a consequence how young people interpret and see their role and relationship to the wider world tends to be ignored. There is no doubt that for many young people in Westernised societies, globalisation can offer innumerable opportunities, particularly if you have access to resources to enable you to travel and meet people from a range of cultures. But it can also be threatening and challenging if the young people are unsure as to who they are. ‘I am from nowhere,’ said one white teenage girl in England in a multicultural classroom. Globalisation can lead to a ‘sense of dislocation from traditional moorings’, as Rizvi has suggested.

Central to this study is the need to look at how young people themselves relate to these themes through international partnership experiences and to locate these perspectives within debates in both globalisation and citizenship.

I commend this publication not only for its scholarship and rigour but also for its important contribution to building a body of evidence and clarity that contributes to making sense of how young people have a sense of place and relate to their role in the wider world.

Douglas Bourn

Director

Development Education Research Centre

Institute of Education

University of London (UK)

Acknowledgements

This research project was made possible by a Linkage Grant (LP0882159) from the Australian Research Council in 2008–11. The Linkage Project was entitled ‘Youth-led learning: Local connections and global citizenship’. Plan International Australia is the industry partner (through Glenn Bond, Victoria Kahla, Lisa Schultz and Jennifer Riley) with chief investigators from the Youth Research Centre at the University of Melbourne (Ani Wierenga and Johanna Wyn) and RMIT University (Jose Roberto Guevara and Annette Gough). Samantha Ratnam (Melbourne) and Jeff King (RMIT) were appointed to the project as PhD scholars. Working from the Youth Research Centre, Sally Beadle provided coordination and research support for the project.

Many people have assisted with and supported the implementation of the Global Connections program, and in so doing have also contributed to the development of this research project: the Indonesian and Australian young people who participated in the program; the Australian facilitators in the Youth Action Group (YAG) who worked in the schools and on the program design and implementation; the Plan Indonesia staff members who coordinated the program (Vera Ersi, Plan Indonesia Country Office, Jakarta; Budi Hermawan, Surabaya Program Unit; Ismail Marjuki, Yogyakarta Program Unit; and Zainudin Kurniawan, Dompu Program Unit); other staff within Plan Indonesia who assisted and supported the implementation of the program (Jipy Priscillia, Plan Indonesia Country Office, Jakarta, and Cicik Sri Rejeki, Surabaya Program Unit); the facilitators who worked with the I...

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• Educating for Global Citizenship