A European Perspective on the Current Status of Global Citizenship Education

• In Event: Anti-Diversity, Repression and Neo-Mercantilism : Can Global Citizenship Education Survive?

Abstract

Global citizenship education can have different orientations: an open market orientation, a moral responsibility with a focus on democracy, or a social-political transformative orientation focusing on social change and justice. In the past decade two developments have changes the attention for global citizenship education. First, the dominance of the open market orientation has different social effects: the elite wins, the lower social class are losing working conditions and jobs. Second, a growing nationalism opposes a moral global orientation and deconstructs democracy and care for humanity. In two studies on request of the parliament of the European Union we researched how the 27 EU-member states implement citizenship education and how global citizenship is part of their curriculum policy and practice. In most countries there is a growing attention for citizenship education, but a nationalist perspective is becoming stronger and a global perspective is becoming less social justice and moral and more economic and competitive. The Ukraine war has recently reinforced the attention for a European citizenship. The moral perspective became stronger, not global but regional.

Author

• Wiel M. Veugelers, University of Humanistic Studies Utrecht