Educating the (diverse!) masses: Incorporating global competence into education for immigrant communities and their host communities

• In Event: Poster session 2

Proposal

Poster Objective
This poster presentation will analyze varying pedagogies and their effects on immediate inclusion, as well as long-term inclusion of immigrants within the host community. Through a literature review, our research will focus on educational approaches: “equity and inclusion” in Canada and “selective assimilation” in the UK. In response to these educational methods, we aim to present a new perspective of inclusive education with a specific focus on “global competency”.

Background
In today’s political climate, immigration is part of our daily conversations, yet it is surrounded by controversy. Regardless, it is the reality of millions of people’s lives throughout the world. There is a multitude of factors that cause this global movement, such as labor demands, political instability, and war and conflict (Bartlett and Ghaffar-Kucher, 2013).

Immigration forces renewed immigrant education methods. Currently, parts of Canada have adopted a more ‘inclusive’ method (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2014). However, the UK still uses a common variation of ‘assimilation’ (Jerrim, 2018), which can disregard the migrant student's diverse backgrounds. However, ‘assimilation’ may not be conducive for inclusion, leading to marginalization of migrant populations and potentially increasing ignorance and prejudice in the host population (Matera et al., 2012). Many scholars such as Suárez-Orozco (2018) claim that a school fostering a sense of cultural belonging is vital to encourage inclusion for all children.

The OECD introduces a promising approach of Global Competency as an educational tool for immigrant education in order to bridge inequalities as well as to promote inclusion. Global Competence is defined as “the capacity to examine local, global, and intercultural issues; to understand and appreciate the perspectives and worldviews of others; to engage in open, appropriate, and effective interactions with people from different cultures; and to act for collective well-being and sustainable development” (OECD, 2018). Incorporating Global Competence in the classroom will be beneficial for incoming immigrants and the host country to improve a sense of belonging, and to prevent discrimination. With this approach, all students, both immigrants, and natives will together become global citizens, sharing the responsibility of inclusion.

Relevance to CIES
Our study responds directly to the field of comparative and international education by comparing Canada and UK’s approaches to immigrant education. We argue that global competency as an educational tool is worth exploring more deeply to ensure inclusion of immigrant students in their host communities.

Conclusion
Our research will examine how incorporating global competency as part of immigrant education is vital for an improved inclusion of migrants in their host communities. Due to the gap in the current literature on this approach, we will further research to understand the dynamics of Global Competency in immigrant education within host communities.

Authors

• A. Munise Gultekin, University of Pennsylvania

• Aimee Perera, University of Pennsylvania