The Handbook of Practice and Research in Study Abroad

Higher Education and the Quest for Global Citizenship

Ross Lewin, Ross Lewin

• Editorial: Routledge
• Año: 2010
• ISBN:
  9781135852337
• Edición: 1
• Categoría: Bildung
• Categoría: Bildung Allgemein

Co-published with the Association for American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U)

If we are all becoming global citizens, what then are our civic responsibilities? Colleges and universities across the United States have responded to this question by making the development of global citizens part of their core mission. A key strategy for realizing this goal is study abroad. After all, there may be no better way for students to acquire the knowledge, skills, and attitudes required to become effective change-agents in international contexts.

The Handbook of Practice and Research in Study Abroad is a comprehensive survey of the field. Each chapter eloquently conveys an enthusiasm for study abroad alongside a critical assessment of the most up-to-date research, theory and practice. This contributed volume brings together expert academics, senior administrators, practitioners of study abroad, and policy makers from across the United States, Canada and other part of the world, who meticulously address the following questions:

What do we mean by global citizenship and global competence?

What are the philosophical, pedagogical and practical challenges facing institutions as they endeavor to create global citizens?

How is study abroad and global citizenship compatible with the role of the academy?

What are the institutional challenges to study abroad, including those related to ethics, infrastructure, finances, accessibility, and quality control?

Which study abroad programs can be called successful?

The Handbook of Practice and Research in Study Abroad is an indispensable reference volume for scholars, higher education faculty, study abroad professionals, policy makers, and the academic libraries that serve these audiences. It is also appropriate for a wide range of courses in Higher Education Master's and Ph.D. Programs.

Part One
Defining Global Citizenship in Study Abroad

Chapter 1
Global Citizenship in Theory and Practice

Hans Schattle
Yonsei University

Perhaps more than any other concept, the idea of global citizenship has emerged since the late 1990s as a key strategic principle in higher education. At scores of colleges and universities in the United States and abroad, the current era of globalization has been accompanied by renewed scholarly interest in an international dimension of citizenship as well as numerous initiatives with the specific aim of inspiring young people to think and live as global citizens. What insights do the historical evolution of cosmopolitan ideals and the recent expansion of the term global citizenship in public discourse offer to scholars, teachers, and administrators?

This chapter begins by tracing the origins and development of the cosmopolitan tradition, illustrating how today’s multifaceted idea of global citizenship echoes numerous strains within cosmopolitan political thinking that have endured through the ages. Then, the chapter chronicles the recent ascendance of the term global citizenship, reviews some of the ongoing scholarly debates surrounding this idea, and explores how contemporary understandings of global citizenship encompass multiple concepts, such as awareness, responsibility, participation, cross-cultural empathy, international mobility, and personal achievement.

THE COSMOPOLITAN TRADITION THROUGHOUT HISTORY

The term cosmopolitan is a composite of the Greek words for order, universe, and citizen. At its heart, the cosmopolitan ideal holds that the inherent dignity and well-being of each human person warrants equal respect and concern,¹ and advocates of the cosmopolitan ideal tend to emphasize universal standards of responsibility that require citizens to “transcend the morally parochial world of the sovereign state” (Linklater, 1999, p. 39). Joshua Cohen (1996) has summarized the essence of cosmopolitanism: “Our highest allegiance must be to the community of humankind, and the first principles of our practical thought must respect the equal worth of all members of that community” (p. vii.).

The earliest political strains of cosmopolitan thinking date back to ancient Greece, where Socrates and Diogenes both identified themselves as citizens of the world.² They did so to challenge the bounded civic ideal of the polis, which championed locally exclusive ties to one’s immediate political community. As Michel de Montaigne wrote of Socrates:

When someone asked of Socrates of what country he was, he did not reply, “Of Athens,” but “of the world.” His was a fuller and wider imagination; he embraced the whole world as his city, and extended his acquaintance, his society, and his affections to all mankind. (Montaigne, 1575/1958, p. 63)

As noted by Derek Heater (1996), who has led the way in contemporary historical scholarship of world citizenship, Socrates held a nonpolitical view of world citizenship that envisioned a sense of affinity with all humanity and the universe, as well. Socrates did not renounce his citizenship of Athens; on the contrary, he willingly submitted to a dubious death sentence. In contrast, the Cynics conceived of world citizenship as a direct rebellion against citizenship of the polis. Diogenes of Sinope famously made clear his disdain for what he considered the hypocrisy and dishonesty of his fellow citizens and set himself apart by proclaiming himself a citizen of the world.

The notion of world citizenship took a decidedly legalistic turn in ancient Rome, with the ideals of universal law and civic virtue closely intertwined in the writings of Roman Stoic thinkers, such as Cicero, Marcus Aurelius, and Seneca. In the context of an empire of overlapping jurisdictions, Roman political philosophers introduced the idea of multiple citizenships and allegiances radiating from state-based political ties into the international arena. As Seneca emphasized:

Let us grasp the idea that there are two commonwealths—the one, a vast and truly common state, which embraces alike gods and men, in which we look neither to this corner of earth nor to that, but measure the bounds of our citizenship by the path of the sun; the other to which we have been assigned by the accident of our birth.³

By acknowledging citizenship ties based on “the accident of our birth,” but awarding higher standing to an envisioned universal political community, the Stoics championed the human capacity to lead a dual civic life—fulfilling obligations to the state while also serving the cosmopolis as a virtuous human person. Such ethical perspectives on world citizenship carried into medieval Christian thinking, with Stoic principles related to moral universalism essentially carried forth into the formation of particular Christian teachings and literature, such as City of God by St. Augustine.

The single most powerful cosmopolitan thinker from the Age of Enlightenment and early modern period was Immanuel Kant, who advanced the ideal of “cosmopolitan right” secured through an international “pacific federation” among free and independent states. As Kant speculated in his essay, “Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch,” written in 1795: “The peoples of the earth have thus entered in varying degrees into a universal community, and it has developed to the point where a violation of rights in one part of the world is felt everywhere” (Kant, 1991, p. 108). Of course, Kant’s linkage of world citizenship to universal human rights echoed the revolutionary declarations of rights written during this period in the emerging American and French national republics. Strikingly, at the same time as the U.S. constitutional framers were convening in Philadelphia in 1787, Benjamin Franklin foresaw the eventual prospect of European federation.

During the 20th century, the atrocities and casualties of the two world wars, culminating in the nuclear attacks upon Hiroshima and Nagasaki, reinvigorated campaigns for a cosmopolitan model linked to more cohesive global governing institutions. Immediately following the Second World War, public discourse regarding “world citizenship” revolved heavily around the founding of the United Nations and the hope that this new global institution would foster world peace and nuclear disarmament. Albert Einstein served as one of the most visible advocates of world government, which he believed was necessary to ward off nuclear holocaust. Einstein stated in an interview in the 1940s: “Do I fear the tyranny of a world government? Of course I do. But I fear still more the coming of another war” (quoted in Nathan & Norden, 1968, p. 376).

The founding documents of the United Nations, filled with sweeping affirmations of human rights for all, represented a giant step forward regarding aspirations for a rights-based model of world citizenship. At the same time, the stalemate of the Cold War and the chronic deadlocks between the West and the Soviet bloc—particularly within the United Nations Security Council— underscored the inherent limitations of the United Nations so far as its ability to transcend national sovereignty and power politics. In addition, groups in opposition to the United Nations often invoked “world citizenship” with scorn during the Cold War years. The idea of world citizenship became vulnerable to attack as signaling a remote and tyrannical world government. Some political organizations on the far right, such as the John Birch Society in the United States, even began to equate “world citizenship” with communism, overlooking the fact that Marxist and Leninist aspirations of an international workers utopia amounted to just one of many competing strains of cosmopolitanism as the concept evolved through the ages.

During the 1980s, in what turned out to be the waning years of Soviet communism, the idea of world citizenship had receded to the margins of political discourse. Even within the field of international relations, the term globalization was barely on the radar screen. However, this same period brought the early ascendancy of a new model of “global citizenship” that hearkened back to ancient cosmopolitan ideals of a universal human community and the goal of mediating ties and allegiances to overlapping, interdependent political and moral communities. Especially within the educational arenas in the United States and the United Kingdom, professional associations, allied organizations, and educational studies specialists began to show greater interest in designing programs seeking to inspire young people to become global citizens.

As early as 1979, the curriculum guidelines of the National Council for the Social Studies (in the United States) stated that the purpose of social studies education is “to prepare students to be rational, humane, participating citizens in a world that is increasingly interdependent.” In 1984, the council’s president, Carole Hahn, placed “global citizenship” directly on the agenda of the professional organization with an impassioned argument that can be viewed as a forerunner to the sorts of philosophical arguments in favor of global citizenship that would emerge with much greater force during the 1990s. As Hahn stated in her 1984 presidential address:

Just as the spread of nationalism since the eighteenth century caused people to rethink the meaning of “citizen,” so now it is once again time to rethink that concept in light of our global interdependence. Like it or not, each of us riding on this planet is affected by one another’s decisions and actions. We share a common destiny and, to an increasing extent, we share a common culture. Although most of us do not realize it, we are participants in a global society. (Hahn, 1984, p. 297)

The promises of an emerging global society became far more evident in the early 1990s with the political and economic opening of the former Soviet Union and its satellites, the ongoing democratic transformations in formerly authoritarian states such as South Africa and South Korea, and stunning advances in digital technology and telecommunications that made the world seem more interconnected and, indeed, smaller than before.

CONTEMPORARY UNDERSTANDINGS OF GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP

As globalization became one of the buzzwords of the approaching new century, the idea of global citizenship became more conspicuous not only within scholarly debates but also as a salient and relevant idea for the general public. International relations theorist Richard Falk (1994) and sociologist John Urry (2000) both captured the new incarnation of global citizenship in separate articles that identified key segments of the population that seemed to fit into categories of prospective global citizens. Their images of global citizens can be consolidated into the following five categories, which overlap with each other:

1 “Global cosmopolitans,” as in individuals who develop, often through extensive international travel, “an ideology of openness towards certain ‘other’ cultures, peoples and environments” (Urry, 2000, p. 73).

2 “Global activists,” as in campaigners who take up causes such as human rights, poverty eradication, environmental protection, or who seek to hold accountable international economic institutions. True to the adage “think globally, act locally,” these individuals also are often active in their local communities and national political arenas.

3 “Global reformers,” who out of concern for all humanity advocate more cohesive and democratically accountable global governing institutions, if not a centralized system of world government, “as indispensable to overcome the chaotic dangers of the degree of political fragmentation and economic disparity that currently exists in the world today” (Falk, 1994, p. 132).

4 “Global managers,” as in individuals who work, often in collaboration with the United Nations and other international governing institutions, to resolve borderless problems ranging from climate change to the threat of nuclear weapons.

5 “Global capitalists,” as in multinational corporate executives who travel the world and form a “denationalized global elite that at the same time lacks any global civic sense of responsibility” (Falk, 1994, p. 135). Some global capitalists also are seen as willing to assume heavy financial risks in their respective quests to “unify the world around global corporate interests” (Urry, 2000, p. 172).

One category of global citizen that Falk and Urry did not single out—but could have done—is global educators. Classroom teachers and school principals; scholars with international credentials, contacts, and research agendas; leaders of international exchange programs; and educational outreach coordinators fo...