Global Citizenship Education for K-12 Students
Publishing Solutions Group
Full-service development, production, translation and audio for print & digital products. K-16. SOWMBA certified.
By Emilie Guan
Summer 2024 Intern
Introduction
As the world grows increasingly interconnected and interdependent, many educators are calling to strengthen the global citizenship education of K-12 students. The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) defines global citizenship education, or GCED, as “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”1. As the world faces more complex political, environmental, social, and economic issues, which often transcend national boundaries, there is a corresponding need to adjust our teaching and education approaches.?
Benefits for K-12 Students
Although the idea of global education has been part of the United States’ pedagogical conversations since the 1970s, it wasn’t until the 21st century when global citizenship education emerged as a prominent concept2. GCED, with its addition of citizenship, specifically emphasizes social justice and carries connotations of both duties and rights, as opposed to “the more minimalist interpretations of global education which are about international awareness or being a more rounded person”2. Therefore, GCED’s goal is not just to cultivate values of care, cultural diversity, and awareness while promoting social justice and sustainability, but to instill a deeper understanding of one’s position in the globe and a sense of responsibility towards taking action.
One of the main benefits for early exposure to ideas of global citizenship and solidarity through GCED in K-12 education is enabling students to understand and respect a pluralistic world. It is through this exposure that students can act as mediators between their normative environment and broader prosocial learning outcomes. A study in the International Journal of Psychology on models of global citizenship found that if one’s normative environment (immediate people and settings, such as friends, family, school) was embedded with global awareness, it positively predicted how much one identified with being a global citizen, which in turn predicted prosocial values3. The researchers placed emphasis on identification of global citizenship as an important mediator between its antecedents of normative environment and outcomes of prosocial learning: those who perceived themselves as global citizens (and thus feel a psychological connection to global citizens as a group) were more likely to endorse prosocial values such as “intergroup empathy, valuing diversity, environmental sustainability, intergroup helping, and felt responsibility to act, beyond identification with the other superordinate categories [e.g. nation, state, occupation]3.” There is growing support for K-12 classrooms as a beneficial learning space, or normative environment, for students to engage with global awareness, understand what it means to be a global citizen, and thus learn and integrate the associated prosocial values.?
An additional study conducted across four different European countries found a statistically significant increase in student’s perceived understanding of global issues such as climate change, sustainability and food waste, and wars, as well as a “sense of their own place in the world” and self-confidence and empowerment4. GCED therefore exposes students to a dimension of knowledge and learning that can be hard to cultivate without a global citizenship mindset. Although GCED is a growing field in educational studies and will benefit from further research, the current body of research strongly suggests that GCED in K-12 education can be a powerful and vital learning tool. It offers many benefits for the future of students—and the world—in terms of educating globally informed and active citizens.
Global Citizenship in the Classroom
What has GCED’s implementation in the classroom looked like thus far? UNESCO outlines the integration of GCED as fourfold5:
Since GCED is a relatively new concept, there is not a lot of standardization for how it’s implemented in school curriculums, how teachers integrate its content into various subjects, or the role of extracurricular learning. A systematic review of existing literature on pedagogical strategies has identified effective or promising strategies for K-12 classrooms. For instance, in a qualitative, multiple case study, the researchers synthesized three effective tenets from concrete pedagogical practices of globally competent educators in North Carolina: “1) intentional integration of global topics and multiple perspectives into and across the standard curriculum; 2) ongoing authentic engagement with global issues; and 3) connecting teachers’ global experiences, students’ global experiences, and the curriculum6.”?
Since GCED has been historically confined to social studies and history courses, they highlighted the need and ways that educators in other disciplines can bring global education into their curriculums. For example, a language arts teacher curated their book list with books from around the world, from Sudan to Vietnam to Peru, and asked students to complete a book report and poster of the country where the book was set. Students also matched idioms from around the world to their origin country. A science teacher led the class in examining energy consumption charts for different countries and discussed challenges to eco-friendly energy sources for different regions. A music teacher introduced musical concepts by comparing songs and genres across different Latin American countries such as ballads, mariachi, or orchestral music6. Many of the educators emphasized a “spiraling presence” of GCED throughout the school year, such as building in discussion of daily news, since global competence doesn’t solidify overnight.?
Other studies have found that in addition to curriculum infusion of GCED, informal curricula such as participation in voluntary youth groups that specifically meet outside of the classroom to learn about global issues and activism increased students’ global competence7. There are clearly a myriad of ways to implement GCED, and more research will be beneficial to guide schools and educators in best supporting students.
Challenges and Barriers to Integration
Previous studies have already identified the lack of teacher preparation and understanding of global citizenship education themselves as a significant barrier to GCED implementation. There is an especially prominent and concerning demarcation between public schools and private or charter schools when it comes to their internationalization levels8, and many schools simply do not offer their teachers the adequate training or resources to integrate GCED into the curriculum. In fact, in the past only 4.5% of GCED programs included some kind of intervention for educators2 in one study’s systematic review. Since teachers’ global awareness directly impacts student’s global citizenship identification and engagement, this leads many researchers to propose interventions directed at teachers as a main next step for GCED2. Interventions could involve state and district standards and evaluations including global citizenship as a competency, providing more opportunities for abroad training and programs through organizations such as VIF International Education, Asia Society, World View, and more, and designating planning periods or PD days for faculty collaboration on global education strategies6. Of course, the barrier of cost still exists, not just for GCED but any new educational programs, especially for schools in underfunded districts.?
Meanwhile, some educators have brought up specific concerns within American schools. In the U.S., the difference between social studies and history classes often falls along lines of national identity (and many history curriculums emphasizing American exceptionalism)—there remains the narrative of using education to develop patriotic citizens to the nation state, which understandably generates tensions with GCED focusing on students developing identification with being a global citizen. Yet research shows that they need not be mutually exclusive: “a recognition that it is in fact global changes that are a major impetus for this “constant state” of re-creating the national narrative, and young people’s identities within this narrative, would provide a more powerful connection between the history curriculum with students’ lived experiences and beliefs.8”
Finally, there is concern that even with attempts to internationalize schools, GCED programs may end up only serving elite students and rarely challenge the dominant national paradigm. With curriculums already deprioritizing arts and humanities and the difficulty to assess GCED with testing, there are significant challenges of priorities and costs before GCED can take a widespread, permanent place in K-12 classrooms.
Conclusion
The field of GCED, with its relative recency and cultural relevance, holds a lot of potential for K-12 education. There is specifically potential for tremendous benefits in developing the prosocial values, global knowledge, and active citizenship for young students, which they can carry into their futures. As UNESCO outlines in their sustainable development goals, education, including GCED, acts as a foundation and primary vehicle to achieve progress in other areas such as world peace, climate change, and social justice. Many educators are excited for the future where many of the students growing up and entering global affairs come from a background of global citizenship. However, there is a long road, filled with many barriers and costs, before that vision can be fully actualized. These challenges include providing more teacher interventions for teaching GCED, especially in public schools, and finding space within an already overcrowded curriculum. It’s clear that the successful and broad integration of GCED into K-12 schools depends on a deep commitment to its goals and realistic measures to continually introduce, revise, and reflect on its strategies, evaluations, and outcomes. The field is young and growing, and schools, educators, and students alike can play an active role in shaping its future.
Publishing Solutions Group
PSG is committed to developing educational materials that best support student learning, including for themes of global citizenship. We understand the increasing globalism both outside and within classrooms and work with our clients to create the most effective learning content for globally informed K-12 students!
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