Global education

In recent years, a great deal has been written about the community participation program that emerged in El Salvador known as Education with Community Participation (EDUCO) (e.g., Edwards, 2015, 2018a, 2018b, 2018c, 2019a, 2019b; Edwards, Victoria, & Martin, 2015). As will be further discussed, the key feature of this program that generated significant attention was the ability of parent councils to manage the school budget and to hire/fire teachers. Following on the fame that this program achieved in the 1990s and 2000s, recent studies have problematized different aspects of its history and implementation. The present chapter continues with this line of research by bringing together and extending critiques that have been made across other publications. Specifically, this chapter seeks, first, to draw attention to the ways that EDUCO’s knowledge base has been mobilized, and not only by international organizations but also in the academic literature; second, to contrast this knowledge mobilization, which has presented EDUCO in a positive light, with a critical understanding of the quantitative studies of EDUCO that are used to present EDUCO as an exemplary program; and, third, to present the weaknesses of this program in practice by drawing on the (largely unknown and ignored) qualitative studies of EDUCO’s implementation. Ultimately, the goal is not only to highlight the fundamentally problematic way that knowledge is produced and used in the global education policy field, but also to argue for a different approach to community participation, one that goes beyond technocratic and instrumental forms of community involvement in school and teacher management to focus instead on community empowerment and community organizing. However, before presenting the critique, this chapter first clarifies the details of what the EDUCO was and how it worked.

In this article, I propose the need to reimagine global citizenship education for a VUCA world: volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous. In this context, it remains unclear what kind of GCE could adequately prepare young people for numerous overlapping global challenges. Most responses to this conjuncture suggest that we revise our descriptions of the problems we face, and cohere around a single prescription for how to proceed in order to either reform or replace our existing system. Drawing on a diagnosis of the present offered by Zygmunt Bauman, and a decolonial analysis of how we arrived here, I ask how we might reimagine GCE in ways that are strategically responsive to current systemic crises, and ethically responsive to the ongoing colonial conditions that are at the root of these crises. I propose an approach to GCE that moves beyond the transmission of static competencies or content, and instead fosters learners' capacities for ongoing self-reflexivity, accountability, and discernment. Toward this end, I suggest balancing concrete policy and open-ended pedagogy, critical and affective literacy, and intellectual and relational rigour. I also suggest the need to identify and interrupt harmful circularities that commonly emerge in efforts to imagine GCE otherwise.

This article focuses on investigating the possibilities of developing textbooks to help implementation of global education in Finnish basic education (first nine years of education). The argumentation is supported by textbook research conducted in the field. Based on research findings, the textbooks guide teaching more than the official national curriculum at the grass-root level in Finland. Moreover, national research conducted in the field reveal that despite the published guidelines and goals, global education teaching has remained modest and uncoordinated. At the same time, national researches have revealed that Finnish pupils’ negative attitudes towards minority groups and immigrants have increased and that regardless of their high level of citizenship knowledge and skills, pupils are not interested in participating in civic actions. Finnish textbooks evaluation studies, in turn, suggest that the above is mainly due to the pedagogical approach and the perspectives represented i...

This article discusses the impact of lexical range on the learnersΓCO ability to communicate in English when taught as a foreign language in bilingual schools, and emphasizes the importance of explicit vocabulary instruction.┬a It draws on data from classroom observation, lexis-retrieval tasks, written and spoken performance in bilingual (German-English) and regular school classes at grades 5-8 in Austrian secondary schools.┬a Results suggest that a wider lexical range results in better communicative competence and fluency and that breakdown of communication in spoken or written performance is more frequently caused by insufficient vocabulary rather than by lack of control or grammatical problems. ┬a┬aConsequently, insights from cognitive linguistics, the Lexical Approach, and Lexical Priming are discussed to justify the concept of vocabulary instruction in contextualized units. Taking the scarceness of theoretical and practical concepts into consideration, the need for research on ...

Yong Zhao, professor in the School of Education at the University of Kansas, and Aaron Benavot, professor of Global Education Policy in the School of Education at the State University of New York at Albany, discuss the value of a test the whole world can take with Director of the OECD Directorate for Education and Skills, Andreas Schleicher.

This article investigates the possibilities of implementing global education in national education by means of an often referred-to social learning theory ‘communities of practice’. The argumentation is supported by research conducted in Finnish comprehensive schools lower level (the first six years of education). The research findings suggest that at the moment in Finland, global education is perceived as a real challenge for practitioners. In conclusion, it is argued that the use of communities of practice as a basis to implement global education perspectives in basic education has good potential to succeed in developing national education policies and in finding best practices for global education.

Global competence-a necessary attribute in an increasingly interconnected world-describes having the knowledge, skills, and dispositions to act creatively and collaboratively on important global issues. In urban settings comprised of racial, ethnic, and/or linguistic-minority students, especially, a logical but seemingly underutilized facilitator of global competence would be instruction that draws from students' funds of knowledge-the home-based practices central to a household's functioning and well-being. In this study, 30 Boston-area teachers were interviewed using a semi-structured protocol to draw out their understandings of students' funds of knowledge and their awareness of how these funds of knowledge might be used to further the development of global competence. Data produced in this study were analyzed through a multi-phase thematic coding process. A conceptual framework built upon existing definitions of global competence and funds of knowledge was developed and used as a guide for viewing and understanding the produced data. The two major findings of this study were that: (1) middle school teachers, while seemingly able and willing to talk about global competence and funds of knowledge in relation to their students, did not seem to synthesize (or speak about their synthesis of) these concepts in practice, and, (2) in teacher interviews, potential global competence-supporting funds of knowledge were most often recognized in immigrant and/or economically privileged White middle school students. The potential global competence-supporting funds of knowledge possessed by non-immigrant, BIPOC, and presumably, low-income students were not routinely recognized or accessed.

"The main objective of this project was to investigate the link between Canterbury Christ Church University (CCCU) in the UK, and Goodwill Children’s Homes (GCH) in Tamil Nadu. Mutual, intercultural learning activities have been in existence between teachers of UK-India since 2000. The idea of a joint study came from the fact that no systematic research had been carried out that aimed to understand intercultural exchange learning processes in a globalized world.
A number of student groups from CCCU and their tutors have been visiting Southern India as part of their education and field work for periods of three weeks for the last ten years. As part of this visit, the groups stay at GCH Thandgudi for 8 – 10 days to interact with staff and children. In 2008, while interacting with the visiting groups it was suggested that a systematic research could be undertaken in order to find out what changes occurred among the visiting and host groups, for both students and teachers, as a result of their stay and interactions.  This formed the basis of the study we now report. 
This is a kind of interpretive or explorative research that involves a study tour, group discussion, and interaction with children, teachers, students, staff and administrators. As educators ourselves, we were interested to understand the dynamics of changing behaviour, attitude of the teachers, house mothers, children and society through intercultural and mutual learning.
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Svet med vrsticami (Slovene version) / UnderCover (English version) is a global education resource book for teachers in elementary and secondary schools. It contains over 40 workshops related to subjects of sustainability, consumerism, transnational corporations and international trade and is accompanied by an interactive DVD. The resourcebook was published as part of the "World in the Shopping Cart" global education project, funded by the European Commission. Project partners included NaZemi (Czech Republic), Humanitas (Slovenia), Živica (Slovakia) and FairTrade Hellas (Greece). Different versions of the resource book are available in the languages of project partners. An English version (edited by Eva Malirova) is available here:  https://www.nazemi.cz/cs/undercover .

Global challenges require international collaboration in order to solve, as Covid 19 exemplifies. In order to oppose xenophobia and promote global solidarity as the world fights this pandemic, teachers need professional development on global learning. Analysis of data collected during an online course that integrated global learning and a variety of online pedagogies, led to two assertions. First, case studies provided a way for teachers to envision new global teaching practices, and video enhanced that possibility. Second, online self-reflection instruments, the Teaching for Global Readiness Scale (Kerkhoff, 2017) and Global Competence Subscale (Morais & Ogden, 2011), provided opportunities for teachers to analyze and reflect on their practices related to global learning.

The society we live in leads us to rethink education and communication languages,
especially in educational processes concerning children and adolescents. It seems
increasingly difficult to build meaningful educational experiences able to involve young
people in transformative processes and overcome the ingrained “nihilistic sense”.
The new digital paradigm and the evolving perceptions of corporeal forms bring some
crucial changes we need to explore. The social science teachings need, therefore, to be
renewed to better deal with knowledge and skills in an interactive environment,
promoting creativity, aesthetics, global and critical thinking and to promote relevant
societal change.
A possible educational method to tackle these realities can be given by the Educational
Live Action Role Play (hereafter “Edu-larp”). An Edu-larp is a live role-playing game in
which the narration is not only told but also played in first hand by the participants with
their body and their actions. Players interact each other by interpreting a character and
playing fictitious situations in a real space (“magic circle”). Despite the Edu-larp still being
a growth method, several studies are highlighting its specific benefits, which include:
identity exploration, communities building and cooperation, transversal skills, didactic
media, problem solving, empathy, and self-awareness.
The presented study builds on the findings of an experimental research on two migrationthemed Edu-larps: “Youth On The Run” which simulates the migratory journey of an asylum seeker family from Somalia to Italy for 24 hours; and “300, the battle of the tent cities” which simulates a 4-hour municipal meeting in which the participants have to
decide the placement of 300 refugees arriving in their city.
It aims to enquire whether both games have significant effects on the participants’
empathy and ethnic prejudices. The research was conducted on 82 subjects who partook
an Edu-larp, using an open-question survey, psychometric scales and Implicit
Association Test (IAT). The test was iterated three times: one week before, one week
after and three months after the game.
This paper will present the research design, the first reflections on the relationship
between a “game for social change”, and possible Edu-larp paths in future of education.

A study of the limits of multilingual literary expression in print culture. Beginning with the insight that multilingual literature defies simple translation, Brian Lennon examines the resistance multilingual literature offers to book publication. Looking closely at the limit of multilingual literary expression and the literary journalism, criticism, and scholarship that comments on multilingual work, In Babel’s Shadow presents a critical reflection on the fate of literature in a world gripped by the crisis of globalization.

Students in a 4th year Cultural Studies and English seminar have produced a Study of the Global Citizen Kelowna initiative.

Shaped by course readings on humanitarianism, the students analyzed specific components of the local global education initiative, as well as the way the initiative conceives of global citizenship education. The students characterize the Global Citizen Kelowna initiative as a form of ‘soft’ global citizenship, as it focuses only on global citizenship as a form of providing aid to the so-called ‘developing’ world.

The initiative does not provide opportunities for participants to explore the complex inter-connections among people in the world. Instead, it focuses on ‘empowering’ Kelowna children and youth to ‘make a difference’ by providing support for development NGOs working in the Global South.

Specific aspects of the initiative, such as the simulated ‘slum’ activity and the Global School House, present people in the Global South in simplistic and degrading ways, reinforcing long-established stereotypes of the Canadian ‘saviour” and the ‘helpless’ African ‘in need’.

The Study analyzes the Global Citizen Kelowna initiative in the context of global citizenship education and debates regarding the best ways to alleviate poverty. The students provide a variety of recommendations that they hope will make the initiative more ‘critical’.

This book review of Kathy Short’s and Dana Fox’s collection of essays on multicultural literature (Stories Matter, 2003) offers a summary  of the views expressed and finds that authors in the debate over what counts as multicultural literature take up either a reader-response approach or cultural studies approach to reading literature. Edited by two of the major figures on multicultural literature in education today, Stories Matter raises a number of important disagreements and confusions over definitions of multicultural children’s literature that continue to be debated today. The book review offers a useful summary and provides a framework for making sense of the many voices in this debate.

This book is designed as a text for teacher education graduate programs, as well as a resource for school administrators and researchers and provides a global perspective to the current issues related to teacher dispositions, their place in teacher education programs, and impact on education reform around the world. Drawing from researchers around the globe, the text provides a comprehensive examination of the theoretical aspects of dispositions in education, including discussions on the social-cognitive perspectives in dispositional development and the pedagogical practices used in conjunction with teacher dispositions. Practices for assessing teacher dispositions will be included, focusing on methodologies for instrument development and the challenges of language and meaning when constructing items to assess dispositions. The text also includes a discussion of the virtual/online classroom and how teacher dispositions are influencing teacher and student relationships. These topics are explored from a global perspective with special emphasis on how the awareness of teacher dispositions and their role in the classroom are making transformative changes to teacher education programs, educational practices, and student outcomes around the world. Part 1 provides a descriptive, progressive narrative of dispositions in teacher education including social and cognitive theories in dispositional development, assessment of dispositions, and the role of dispositions in teacher preparation and teacher program certification. Part 2 takes the reader around the globe as scholars from around the world provide insight into how teacher dispositions impact teaching and learning from Finland to Japan and points in between. The chapters highlight case studies and research related to teacher dispositions from traditional and alternative teacher certification program, as well as online classrooms. Part 3 concludes with a discussion on the global and intercultural connection as related to teaching dispositions.

http://tinyurl.com/zz26fv3

This descriptive article explores the uses of poetry and journaling exercises as means of helping students develop their self-reflective capacities within the context of international social work. First, self-reflection and its importance to social work practice and education is discussed. Second, the importance of self-reflection in international and cross-cultural work is highlighted. Third, the application of poetry and other journal writing exercises as a means of facilitating self-reflection is explored. Poems written in response to structured exercises by students who took part in an international experience in social work education in Leon, Nicaragua, are presented as examples. The exercises presented can be used by educators in various helping professions who seek to help their students expand their self-reflective skills and engage in cross-cultural and international practice.

Global education is becoming a more commonplace for universities today. The term is a result of globalization in the modern age which global forces will intensify in many fronts. Global education results from having a global dimension in the curriculum; or when it is referred to in the plural form it is equal to the fact that there are different cultural and political perspectives on global matters (Hicks, 2003, p. 274). The concept is mostly adopted in a school level starting from younger age. Global education was initiated in the 1920s in the U.K. when a group of progressive teachers set up the World Education Fellowship with the journal. From then, global education evolved through time and gradually changes its components to suit today’s global need. Global education is a fairly new concept for Thai education. Wichit Srisa-an (2003) outlines global education as the conveyor of 21st century competence and is developed through borderless learning. However, the document analysis illustrates that global education research is limited to a school context (Kumpeerathud, 1993; Lawthong, 2003; Vongnim, 1988).

The study of interrelated global discourses, processes, and institutions that impact local educational practices and policies is known as globalization and education research.The primary global educational topics include the information economy and technology, lifelong learning, global migration or brain circulation, and neoliberalism. The World Bank, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the World Trade Organization, the United Nations, and UNESCO are the primary institutions that contribute to global educational discourses and activities.  International assessment, such as the Trends in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and the programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), as well as education in English as a business language, are helping to bring national curriculum closer together. Critics of present global tendencies advocate for educational alternatives that conserve local languages and cultures, promote progressive educational systems that protect the poor from the wealthy, and safeguard the environment and human rights.

This paper is focused on the pilot quantitative research on youth culture building and gender construction through the Internet, media, popular culture, and computer games in post-Soviet Kazakhstan. There are some considerations of global, regional, and local contents of the Internet, media, and popular culture in students’ preferences in that research. In this study it was indicated that Russian context is spread in the Internet and media among the students’ interests while global one is widespread in popular culture. Although local Kazakh aspects are also presented on the Internet, media, and popular culture, it is not sufficient enough. Additionally, it was argued that Internet, media, popular culture, and computer games construct gender identity and sometimes gender equality of young people in present-day Kazakhstan.

The term, inclusion, particularly in the educational setting, is still based on a deficit view. Perceptions of 'dis'-ability create barriers to true inclusion and are often reinforced through higher education training programs. To promote inclusive values, acceptance of individual and cultural differences must be included in all curricula, not solely within special education. The future of a truly inclusive education relies on a cultural shift that supports and nurtures differences, and views success through a lens not focused on standardization but on diversity. The Index for Inclusion (The Index) has been utilized worldwide to support schools, to remove perceived barriers and to establish increasingly inclusive school cultures and practices. The Index aids in the creation of a culture that is dedicated to identifying and reducing barriers to inclusion and increases the learning and participation for all students.

The increase in the interest in and the implementation of global education (GE) activities has been accompanied by an increase of the use of e-learning. Yet, it is seldom that these two were explored in an inter-linked manner or evaluated in a joint way. The purpose of this article is to examine a case study of a global education e-learning programme as developed by the Council of Europe’s North-South Centre and the Network University and its outcomes using both educational and development criteria. In the period of July 2009 – June 2012, eleven courses were examined through an analysis of participants’ inputs, evaluation forms and a follow-up survey administered 6-12 months after the first six courses. This study shows that the course improves participants’ awareness of global issues and interconnectedness as well as skills which they apply in their current practice, in new activities, advocacy and in policy making.
Key words: global education – e-learning – evaluation