Student experiences of global citizenship education: schools, cosmopolitan solidarity and action

• In Event: Poster Group 8
  In Poster Session: Student experiences of global citizenship education: schools, cosmopolitan solidarity and action

Proposal

Global Citizenship Education is an intervention for action and change. This poster presentation integrates conference sub-theme 2: Curriculum and Protest by illustrating the findings from a recent empirical comparative and international PhD research project conducted through the University of Tasmania, Australia. The research investigated the experience of global citizenship in the lives of students, teachers and school leaders in three sample international schools in Finland, The Netherlands and Australia as well as participant schools’ self-representation of global citizenship through the texts on websites and prospectus materials. The study found that student activism was considered a powerful global citizenship action, especially by students in Finland and the Netherlands. The research found that the Fridays for Climate protest movement was an important global citizenship action based on ideas of cosmopolitan solidarity for students in Finland and it was actively encouraged by teachers. However, students in the Australian school were not familiar with activism.

Global citizenship has been established as a priority in international education policy. It involves looking to the future whilst developing knowledges, skills, values and attitudes in learners to encourage the fullness of their own humanity. Global citizenship also encompasses taking responsibility for fostering the humanity of others, through engagement with global issues and diversity with intercultural understanding and upholding human rights. However, as a contested concept, global citizenship education can be interpreted in various ways, in expansive ethical ways for the common good and social justice, or in limited ways for the benefit of an exclusive few. Theoretical discussions about what global citizenship is are important, but more than ever there is a need to know what is happening in schools.

This qualitative study, positioned within a social constructivist paradigm, uses phenomenology, Critical Discourse Analysis and semiotic analysis to investigate the main research question: What are the articulations of global citizenship education in International Baccalaureate international schools? This research project is respectful of children’s perspectives and roles as active social agents and phenomenology is a sensitive, ethical approach, appropriate for researching children and education. A targeted sample generated interview data from three school directors, five teachers/school leaders and fourteen students (within focus groups across the three schools). Thematic analysis was used to interpret interview data. Language conveys social power and schools use language to express their aims and processes. Therefore, using Critical Discourse Analysis, an examination of school self-representational texts explored the schools’ global citizenship aims. Furthermore, the study used data from a semiotic visual analysis of visual texts related to Global Citizenship Education on school documents and/or websites. The lived experience interview data were compared with the school aims from the textual analysis.

Author

• Caroline Ferguson, University of Tasmania