Global Citizenship Education: A New Ethics for the World System?

• In Event: Global Citizenship Education and Sustainability Theories, Practices, and Policies

Abstract

GCE builds on many related fields such as human rights education, peace education, education for international understanding and is aligned with the objectives of education for sustainable development (ESD).” The realpolitik of the term refers to a sense of belonging to a broader community and a common humanity, emphasizing the interdependency and interconnectedness between the local, the national and the global. This presentation will give analysis on the needed theorizing to help answer the following questions: What exactly is global citizenship? How could it be implemented? What are the pro and cons of global citizenship education? How different is this model of citizenship building from national citizenship that emerged with the constitution of the nation-states in the last two centuries? What is the role of the UN as a kind of supra-national state in achieving this trilogy of goals that seemed so interconnected in the Global Education First Initiative (GEFI) launched by the United Nations in 2012? Is this global citizenship a kind of civic education for the 21st century? Further, how is it connected with global citizenship, peace education, and education for sustainable development? The presentation will provide political philosophical perspectives, analyzing three categories that are associated with citizenship building: civic knowledge, which in the context of constitutional democracy entails the knowledge of basic concepts informing the practice of democracy such as public elections, majority rule, citizenship rights and obligations, constitutional separation of power, and the placement of democracy in a market economy. The second category associated with citizenship building is civic skills, which usually mean the intellectual and participatory skills that facilitate citizenship’s judgment and actions. The last category is civic virtues, usually defined around liberal principles such as self-discipline, compassion, civility, tolerance and respect. The growing technocratic policy environments usually focus on competencies to be evaluated for functional life and work. The Capability Approach emphasizes individual capabilities to achieve a life they value, and the ethical and moral choices embedded in that concept of life. This approach, developed by Amartya Sen, has been implemented in the UN’s Development Program, as an alternative to narrow econometrics to measure poverty or development. The presenter will discuss how, through a capability approach, we may be able to model global citizenship education as an answer to our troubled times, a new ethics for the global system, and a tool to interrupt inequality. The presenter will problem-pose the following central question: How can the creation of a global democratic multicultural citizenship facilitate an education for democracy? This leads to the following two questions. How to build better schools, intellectually richer schools, particularly for those who are in the bottom of society? How to build a global democratic multicultural citizenship curriculum where everybody learns from the rich diversity of society and where the trends toward balkanization and separatism in modern societies can be prevented and even reversed. The presenter will discuss the need of preparing teachers to become the center of collective experiences and solidarity in school settings.

Author

• Carlos Alberto Torres, University of California - Los Angeles