While teachers may struggle to understand what global citizenship means, students experience global citizenship through intercultural relationships and human connection. Recent research found that secondary school students perceive that they learn global citizenship through human interactions across cultures. 

Students reported that friends and classmates share positive intercultural moments together. Students also value intercultural exchange with teachers. This highlights how important it is to embrace culturally diverse school environments for global citizenship education. In a digital age, with so much hype about artificial intelligence, the results show the power of human connection.

Students expressed that global citizens need intercultural collaboration skills. After all, international cooperation depends on humans understanding each other. Students reported feeling a sense of belonging and responsibility to a human family. As one student said, “Everybody owes something to everyone else”. However, the students studied didn’t mention how power is distributed in this global community. This reveals a deficit in critical thinking about global histories, inequality and complicity. 

Human connection needs more time

For teachers in the study, global citizenship education is a bit of a mystery. They struggle to conceptualise it. A major result of the study was that schools don’t give GCE the priority and time that it requires. Giving teachers support to build on students’ relational foundations of global citizenship might be a good place to start. Providing opportunities for more authentic human connection and critical thinking through learning about how the world is organised could help.

These findings were part of PhD research at the University of Tasmania to find out the lived experience Global Citizenship Education [GCE]. GCE features not only in lofty global education policy, most notably as part of The Sustainable Development Goals but has also made its way into various curricula and school missions. In the process, global citizenship has also become a buzzword. GCE can be a sign of commitment to peace and understanding. It can also be code for success in the global economy. While there is no accepted definition, it is obvious that citizenship in a globalised world goes well beyond our national borders. Challenges such as environmental crises, poverty and growing economic inequalities are glaring issues that demand our shared responsibility.

Popularity of international schools and programmes is booming

I chose to conduct my research in English-medium International Baccalaureate international schools in Australia, Finland and The Netherlands. The International Baccalaureate [IB] is a non-profit foundation that offers K-12 programmes to schools for fees. There are currently 213 Australian schools offering IB programmes. An idealistic global citizenship ethic is woven into the supranational IB curriculum continuum. At the same time, a polished corporate image and the prize of internationally recognised qualifications for overseas study, make the IB a hot commodity for elite schools. The tensions between the utopia in the vision and the inequalities of elite education are stark. 

International schools are a growing component of the global education market. There is crossover between the Australian international and independent sectors. The complicated typology of international schools can include local schools with global perspectives, schools with national curricula in different countries such as French international schools, or international curricula schools attracting many nationalities. International schools are part of the strategic neoliberal response to globalisation and often the vestiges of colonialism. This makes them interesting research terrains. Despite the ethical ideals of peaceful intercultural understanding that transnational education promises, the reality can be quite the opposite. They are elite institutions for privileged young people. 

Global citizenship education through community 

In addition to connecting interculturally with peers and teachers, the Middle Years Program students in the study lived global citizenship by taking action with their communities. Through service in the local community, students recounted some empowering experiences with positive global impacts. However, there were also themes of taking action by giving to charity for unfortunate others. This was problematic as it raises the questions of who can be a global citizen and who provides a service to whom. Some responses from students showed that giving to charity can be motivated by creating a favourable image of themselves rather than altruism. The research showed that young people were not aware of positions of privilege or power differences. 

“They’re just doing what they do with their friends”- (secondary student) 

For students, global citizenship is an everyday relational experience. Care and compassion was reported as being an important motivation in relationships with peers to protect their wellbeing and to express respect, especially across different cultures. Students in the study also said that teachers model global citizenship through relational compassion. A key reported attribute was being open-minded, which aligns with the literature on emotional openness in intercultural education.

Learning how to get along together and developing critical thinking around issues of global justice should be part of contemporary schooling. We are reminded of our hyper interconnectedness everyday, across national borders, and cultures. Yet we can’t ignore that models of education are swept along in powerful forces of neoliberalism with its central tenets of individualism, privatisation, competition and performativity. Indeed, these are the very trends that have caused many of our common problems. 

Why we need a conscious global citizenship curriculum

My research shines a light on GCE within a small segment of the IB international school landscape. The research found that students can have meaningful experiences that develop global citizenship but these are not effectively built on or enriched by formal schooling. I recommend that the experiences of young people are included in whole school global citizenship discussions and greater criticality is applied through quality productive pedagogies. Making space for professional development, a conscious global citizenship curriculum and targeted teaching practices could go some way to uncover and untangle the complexities of our responsibilities in this globalised world.