“Raising the Consciousness of Humanity’s Common Destiny” and the Cultivation of Global Identity in Chinese Education

• In Event: Education for Ethnic, National and Global Identities in China

Proposal

President Xi Jinping has called for raising a consciousness of humanity’s common destiny (renlei minyun gongtongti yishi). This has important implications for education for global citizenship and global identity in China. Global citizenship education around the world is becoming increasingly important for two main reasons. The first is that increasing international migration to and from countries around the world has meant that “national boundaries are eroding because millions of people live in several nations and have multiple citizenships and millions have citizenship in one nation and live in another. Others are stateless, including millions of refugees around the world…” (Banks, 2008). The second reason is that humanity is facing the increasing effects of unsustainability on the planet and on humanity (Andreotti, 2021). China is increasingly becoming a multicultural immigrant nation and as the most populous nation on the planet bears great responsibility for “humanity’s common destiny.”
In this paper, we investigate the question: to what extent does China emphasize the cultivation of global citizenship and global identity in basic education? In 2018, measures of global competence were added to the OECD PISA tests and questionnaires. In this paper, we use analysis of the 2018 PISA data to see how measures of global competence in the student, teacher and principal questionnaires in China compare with measures of global competence from around the world. We also conduct content analyses of three sets of content: education policy documents relevant to the concept of “humanity’s common destiny”; curriculum standards for all subjects primary grade 1 to high school grade 3 (gao san); and in depth analyses of content specific to the “humanity’s common destiny” concept in the political thought (zhenzhi sixiang), Chinese language and arts, and history curricula.
Andreotti, V. D. O. (2021). Depth education and the possibility of GCE otherwise. Globalisation, Societies and Education, 19(4), 496-509.
Banks, J. A. (2008). Diversity, group identity, and citizenship education in a global age. Educational Researcher, 37(3), 129-139.

Author

• Tanja Carmel Sargent, Rutgers University Graduate School of Education