Global citizenship education for the global commons

Group Submission Type: Formal Panel Session

Proposal

Confronting multiple, simultaneous globalization efforts, the Global Education First Initiative (GEFI) launched in 2012 by erstwhile former U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, predicates global citizenship education as a solution to enhance global peace, improve the sustainability of the planet, and bolster the defense of a global commons. In an increasingly chaotic world system, what Ulrich Beck calls “a risk society,” GEFI envisioned global education as a linchpin for reducing poverty and hunger, curtailing wasted potential, and developing stronger societies. Three pillars support this initiative: putting every child into school, improving the quality of learning, and fostering global citizenship. When we cultivate the third pillar, global citizenship education, new programs of teaching and research emerge. As diverse planetary regions face multifaceted crises, global learning becomes an essential tool for building understanding across borders and cultures in favor of social, political, economic, and environmental interconnection. By promoting GEFI, former Secretary Ban Ki- Moon melded the concepts of education-for-all and quality education, espousing global citizenship as a new model of intervention to attain peace and sustainable development. We expect that Mr. Antonio Guterres, the new U.N. Secretary, will continue this effort.
Today, as we stand in the midst of converging conflicts and crises, it is critical that we define who we are and understand what our roles and responsibilities are as cosmopolitan citizens. Accordingly, the call for global citizenship education (GCE) in all educational settings, from formal to informal to non-formal, is urgent. There are at least three reasons that justify global citizenship education. First, it can contribute to global peace. Second, it can help to interrupt social cultural and economic inequalities and reduce both absolute and relative poverty in the world. Third, it can offer practical options and best practices to promote civic minimums and civic virtues that will nurture a more democratic and just society.
But there are other reasons to promote this model as a new educational narrative. First, it will challenge the instrumental rationale for increasing the technological impetus of educational discourse in favor of a more practical, nuanced way of addressing the problematic snarls of contemporary society. As a democratic model of governance, it will present alternatives to the newest models of banking education. It may also help to identify ways to prevent predatory economic and cultural forces that threaten to accelerate the wholesale destruction of the planet.A central premise of this analysis is that global citizenship is seen as an intervention dealing with a new wave of global challenges that require some form of collective response to find effective solutions. These include increasingly integrated and knowledge-driven economies; greater migration between countries and from rural to urban areas; growing inequalities; more awareness of the importance of sustainable development, including concerns about climate change and environmental degradation; a ballooning youth demographic and the constant acceleration of global technological development. Each of these elements carries far-reaching implications which, together, represent a historic period of transition. Education systems need to respond to global challenges requiring collective response with strategies that are themselves global, rather than country-by-country.
In this panel, the presenters will discuss the importance of Global Citizenship Education and what its implications and applications for formal, informal and non-formal education should be. In its discussion, the presenters explore the theme of Global Commons as an underlying premises of Global Citizenship.
The concept of global commons is supported and defined by three basic propositions. The first is that our planet is our only home that we must protect through sustainable education in global citizenship, moving from diagnosis and denunciation into policy implementation and action. Second, the global commons is predicated on the idea that global peace is an intangible cultural good of humanity with immaterial value: a Utopia but realizable human treasure. Third, the creation of a global commons depends on the cultivation of human desire and ability to find ways for people to live together democratically in an ever more diverse world, seeking to fulfill their individual and cultural interest and achieving their inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Global citizenship supports the establishment of planetary peace and the development of its requisite human resources through civic engagement in its classical dimensions of knowledge, skills, and values. Planet, people and peace are necessary components for the creation of a global commons.
This session will offer intellectual as well as practical insights for policy makers, scholars, and educators, in various communities and institutions to navigate its ever-shifting tides and currents. The panel provides various aspect of Global Citizenship Education taking place in various parts of the world, and brings discussion on various dimensions of its practice from theoretical foundation to pedagogical approach, contextualized challenges and the future implications.

Sub Unit

• General Pool

Chair

• Ana Elvira Steinbach Torres, UFPB, PFI-UCLA

Presenters

• Lauren Ila Misiaszek, Institute of International and Comparative Education, Beijing Normal University

• Jason Nunzio Dorio, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)

• Greg W Misiaszek, Beijing Normal University

• Shiva Zeynali, .

Individual Presentations

• Global Citizenship Education for Social Justice - Debbie Shin, UCLA

• Global Citizenship Education work in hard spaces in the Global South - Lauren Ila Misiaszek, Institute of International and Comparative Education, Beijing Normal University

• Ecopedagogy and the Global Commons of Earth’s balance and peace: Teaching for environmental global citizenship - Greg W Misiaszek, Beijing Normal University

• Global Citizenship Education in Light of Theories of Motivation - Shiva Zeynali, .; Carlos Alberto Torres, CIES

• Transformative University Global Citizenship Education as a Model of Internationalization at Home - Jason Nunzio Dorio, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)

Discussant

• Carlos Alberto Torres, CIES