Promoting collective global engagement for better education futures: The case of a United World Colleges Short Course

• In Event: Global Citizenship Education, Solidarity, and Youth Activism in Turbulent Times: Complementary Perspectives

Proposal

The United World Colleges (UWC) are ‘a global movement that makes education a force to unite people, nations and cultures for peace and a sustainable future’ through ‘nurturing young people’s energy and idealism into empathy, responsibility and lifelong action’ (www.uwc.org). The first UWC (Atlantic College in South Wales) was established at the peak of the Cold War in 1962 based on the progressive educational philosophy of Kurt Hahn, which emphasizes experiential learning that demands ‘action’ to facilitate a transformative education that will lead to a better world and ultimately world peace. There are now 18 schools and colleges across four continents catering mostly for the 16-19 age group. They deliver the two-year long International Baccalaureate’s Diploma Programme (IBDP) and have a ‘values-driven and activist-oriented mission’ (Perez 2015, 5) linked to the IB’s concept of international mindedness based upon multilingualism, intercultural understanding, and global engagement (in the form of action, resistance, and protest).
Little research has been carried out on the UWC, especially in relation to its every-day practices and intended experiences. A particularly under-looked aspect is the UWC ‘Short Courses’ (UWCSC), which run over 1–5 weeks, once or twice a year, outside of the school period, for young people aged 14-20. The UWCSC is an integral part of the UWC movement offering ‘a transformational opportunity’ to ‘advance the UWC mission by bringing UWC education to a wider audience than UWC schools and colleges alone can reach’ (uwc.org). The central aim is to enable participants ‘to spark a change in [their] life and the world around [them] in just a matter of days or weeks’.
We present empirical research gathered from a semi-ethnographic, qualitative case study of a Short Course that took place in a rural location in Northern Europe in 2019, before Covid-19 forced many to close or be moved online temporarily. Based on semi-structured interviews with 10 participants, we discuss how the course represented a form of intense, remote immersion, representative of Erving Goffman’s (1961) work on the concept of ‘Total Institutions’, which was powerful in affecting and transforming participants for collective global engagement. Alongside thematic analysis of the data, we applied Goffman’s ‘frame analysis’ (1974) to look for common words and theoretical metaphors to understand students’ shared experiences. Two key metaphors were that the course 1) provided a ‘safe space’ in which participants’ voices could be heard non-judgementally, enabling them to learn more about themselves and others and engage in risk-taking; 2) developed a group/community/family spirit within a ‘mini-society’ creating a sense of social solidarity and concern for others. We also use Collins (2014) Interaction Ritual Chain Theory to show how the every-day rhythm and interactions of the rituals of the course, coupled with an intentionally deeply emotional experience, can transform young people and empower them with the positive emotional energy that they need to ‘spark change’ in the future.

Authors

• Nicola Savvides, University of Bath, Department of Education

• Tristan Bunnell, The University of Bath