Facilitating Critical Global Citizenship by Supporting Students as Citizen-Researchers ("In Their Own Words")

• In Event: 49.038 - Critical Global Citizenship: Education for Global Understanding and Local Justice

Abstract

It would be antithetical to goals of this project to simply speak on behalf of student-citizen-participants and their experiences. Therefore, if this session is accepted, we will invite students and alumni of the course to create a presentation based on their experiences. A research team member will function as a facilitator and will provide context for the student experiences with critical global citizenship. The group of student participants will determine what they would like to share, and to put together a presentation for AERA that focuses on justice from the global to the local scale.
In the course “Becoming a Global Citizen,” global citizenship is conceived of as an awareness of self and world; an understanding of others; the practice of empathy and engagement; the participation in the social, political and intellectual life of one’s community; and the development of one’s critical and imaginative capacities (Green, 2013; Morais & Ogden, 2011; Nussbaum, 1997, 2006; Schattle, 2007, 2009, 2012). Therefore, we took an approach to global citizenship education grounded in critical pedagogy: emancipatory, participatory, collaborative, reflective, questioning teaching and learning (Freire, 1970; Giroux, 2006; hooks, 1994 & 2009; Kincheloe, 2008; McLaren, Macrine & Hill, 2010; Shor, 1992). The experiences of students are considered valid and valued bodies of knowledge for examination in a critical classroom educating for global citizenship.
We created space for student-citizens to reflect and engage with each other and their many overlapping communities. Members of the class not only hosted and led a conversation with their Congressman about immigrant rights after exploring and researching local injustices and linking these events to broader concerns about the world, but also recorded each others’ own oral histories. Their action research projects were based on “generative themes” (Freire, 1970; Kincheloe, 2008; Shor, 1992) they identified from their explorations and understanding of the ways global injustices manifest lin their own communities.
As students coordinated their research projects, public presentations, and community outreach, they themselves reached consensus around dividing up responsibilities - preparing content and presentation materials, speaking for the group, eliciting feedback from audience and community members. We would request that participants explain the ways that they understand global citizenship and also explain the ways that they as global citizens conceive(d) of local and global social justice and social action in this course. We will also request that participants address questions such as: Why did you choose to participate in ‘Becoming a Global Citizen’? What have you learned about yourself, your peers, your communities, the world as a result of this course? What were your research questions, methods, results, limitations, implications, directions for future research from your action research project? What do you want educators and education researchers to know about your experience? What do you think could be improved? What do you think could be shared with other students, schools, and systems?
Allowing students to use their own voice is our attempt to embody the course’s values and structure, allowing the AERA audience to more deeply understand the course and its implications.

Author

• Sahtiya Hosoda Hammell, University of Virginia