Youth Leadership and Empowering Global Citizens

• In Event: Roundtable Session 9
  In Refereed Roundtable Session: Empowering Youth Through Digital Capital, Extracurriculars, and Skills Development

Proposal

Globalization has extended into education, where world organizations (e.g. United Nations) are requiring schools to teach knowledge, skills, and attitudes so students develop competency to communicate, cooperate, and negotiate with people from varying backgrounds (Ticher-Wagner et al., 2016). UNESCO (2015) has developed a curriculum which Global Citizenship Education (GCE) can be implemented in schools so students can acquire these competencies. In 2014, Japan’s Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports Science and Technology (MEXT) developed the ‘Super Global High Schools’ initiative to develop young people with competencies and skills that can compete with the needs of a more globalized and competitive world (Butler & Iino, 2017). Despite the initiatives to fostering ‘global human resources’, discussions of youth having an ‘inward-looking orientation’ are being raised due to the decrease in Japanese youth studying or working abroad (Burgess, 2015). To combat youths lacking engagement and belief with a more globalized society, GCE curriculum inspired leadership programs are a necessity to increase awareness of culture and diversity in a homogeneous Japanese society. By implementing GCE in leadership programs, there is a potential for Japanese youth to develop self-efficacy, social-emotional awareness, and empowerment in their leadership capabilities.

Global Citizenship Education
Becoming a global citizen does not mean individuals must give up their national, regional, or cultural identities for one global culture, rather, individuals are actively involved in the interconnected local and global community, using their knowledge, skills, and attitudes that foster productive and socially just participation (Tichnor-Wagner et. al., 2016). Consequently, the humanistic process of becoming self-aware connects to the exploration of the purpose of each individual’s role of contributing to the greater good. Thus, it is the process of “understanding and transforming one’s social agency based on the process of becoming more human” (Torres, 2008 as cited in Guajardo, 2021).

The research aims to gather data on teaching methods, study environment, and values of educators that practice GCE to design and revise a GCE curriculum-inspired leadership workshop. The research questions the researcher will address are:
1. How does GCE curriculum contribute to leadership development for youth in an increasingly globalized world?
2. What recommendations do teachers give in the creation of a GCE leadership workshop?
The research site was conducted at a Japanese Soka high school. The participant sample included up to 6-10 educators, both, male/female, including English teachers. Through snowball sampling, other educators from different Soka Institutions may be selected if recommended by the teachers or Soka professional networks. Data collection included interviews with the teachers for 30-60mins, content analysis, and observations.

Initial findings show that educators of Soka schools foster global citizenship practices and instill values of wisdom, courage, compassion and the ecology of life shared by the Founder Daisaku Ikeda to the students.

The contribution of this research is to bring a connection of GCE and leadership. Few research has been conducted that contributes to leadership, GCE, and curriculum development. Thus, this research will also contribute towards the deepening of conversation in leadership, GCE and empowering youth.

Author

• Robi Lynes