A Systematic Review of Literature on Youth Activism and Global Citizenship Education and an Italian case study of students’ mobilization

• In Event: "Activism and Global Citizenship: Transnational Perspectives on Solidarity and Protest"

Proposal

The role of youth engagement and activism in global citizenship education has become an emerging element in literature for its potential to become a catalyst for social change, fostering critical thinking, promoting global solidarity and just transition. Particularly relevant are also the emergence new transnational youth movements related to the environmental crisis as well to non-Western knowledge around the globe.
This systematic review aims to provide a comprehensive analysis of the existing literature on youth activism in global citizenship, exploring the key themes, theoretical frameworks, critical pedagogies, and outcomes associated with this important social phenomenon comparing across three different regions: Europe, North and Latin America. By examining a diverse range of scholarly sources, this review contributes to a deeper understanding of the motivations, challenges, and transformative potentials of youth activists engaged in global citizenship.
The review adopts a systematic approach to identify relevant studies published in academic journals, books, and conference proceedings in English. A comprehensive search strategy is employed, utilizing multiple electronic databases and search engines to ensure inclusiveness such as Web of Science, Scopus, Eric, complemented by Google Scholar. A rigorous screening process is applied to select studies based on their relevance and quality, resulting in a final set of articles for data extraction and analysis. We seek to include both theoretical and empirical analysis related to youth activism and global citizenship.
The synthesized literature reveals the multifaceted nature of youth activism in the realm of global citizenship, shedding light on the diverse issues, challenges, and aspirations that motivate young activists. The review highlights that youth activists engaged in global citizenship tackle a broad spectrum of interconnected global challenges, including climate change, human rights, raising inequality, gender identities, and epistemic justice.
The review also explores the theoretical frameworks employed to analyse youth activism in the context of global citizenship, uncovering intersections between global citizenship education, social movements and critical youth studies. Conceptual lenses such as transformative learning, cosmopolitanism, global solidarity, and youth agency, critical transnational social movements are utilized to understand the motivations, strategies, and impacts of youth activists engaged in global citizenship. These frameworks help to illuminate the complex dynamics of global interconnectedness, identity formation, and transformative action within the context of youth activism.
Furthermore, the systematic literature review will shed light on the conceptualizations of global citizenship present in studies related to youth activism to understand whether youth advances with new conceptualizations with the ones more present in GC scholarship.
Methodologically, the review reveals a diversity of research approaches, with both qualitative and quantitative methods adopted. Case studies, surveys, interviews, participatory research, and action research are frequently utilized to examine the experiences, perspectives, and practices of youth activists in global citizenship. Youth activists in global citizenship have been instrumental in mobilizing collective action, challenging dominant narratives, and fostering a sense of global responsibility among their peers and communities.
The literature review is then complement by a concrete case study in Italy that explores how the connection between informal and formal education stimulates effective mobilization of students towards GCE. Remarkably, out of the three GCE (UNESCO, 2015) three key dimensions (cognitive, attitudinal, and behavioral) the third one is the most difficult to observe and evaluate (VanderDussen Toukan, E., 2018). The starting assumption is that to mobilize effective citizens’ engagement into GCE two elements play a key role. First the presence of an educational alliance between formal and informal education. Second, the presence of a common ground in the practices and conceptions of GCE mobilization among key actors (e.g. teachers, NGOs and students. In fact, given the presence of the diverging ideas, there is a strong risk for ineffective top-down interventions, where students do not share the same presuppositions of the other actors and therefore cannot express their agency in a way that fits in the framework set by the other actors involved.
Our case study will therefore explore the interconnection and overlap between the students and teachers perspectives and understanding of GCE concepts and practices by adopting a converged parallel mixed-methods design (Creswell & Plano Clark, 2007) to compensate and complement strengths and weaknesses of diverse approaches to data collection. Qualitative methods such as focus groups will be used to analyze the conceptual understanding, beliefs and practices related to GCE from the perspective of students, whereas quantitative methods (questionnaires to teachers and NGOs) will allow investigating teachers and school practices.
The case studies analysis combines:
1) Content analysis of key policy documents to understand how is GCE, especially focusing climate change, is embedded into Italian educational system;
2) Semi-structured interviews to teachers and NGOs operators.
3) Focus group discussion (Bourne & Winstone, 2021) to collect the perception of students
4) social media exploration of youth activists
We use an in-depth case study where we study two high schools purposively selected based on the presence of a combination of non-formal education and formal education interventions and one where there is only formal education. Based on long-lasting cooperation with an NGO operating in Bologna and in the entire Italian territory, we will study one school where the NGO is present with projects only through curricular activities and one where intervene both in curricular and extra-curricular activities.
This systematic review complement with a case study enhances our understanding of youth activism in global citizenship providing insights into the key themes, theoretical frameworks, methodologies, and outcomes associated with youth activism in global citizenship. It underscores the importance of recognizing and supporting the agency and voices of youth activists, providing them with opportunities for engagement potentially overcoming of geopolitics of knowledges (Mignolo, 2011).

Author

• Carla Inguaggiato, Technion