Framing the global: Assessing the purpose of global citizenship education in primary geography | Intellect Skip to content
1981
  1. Home
  2. A-Z Publications
  3. Citizenship Teaching & Learning
  4. Volume 18, Issue 3
  5. Article
Volume 18, Issue 3
  • ISSN: 1751-1917
  • E-ISSN: 1751-1925

Abstract

Global citizenship education (GCE) plays an important role in preparing citizens with the competencies to tackle existing and emerging challenges brought on by globalization. Yet, determining the desired purposes of GCE is contested as it is shaped by different perspectives on globalization, and conceptualized through different discourses in different contexts. This article uses Biesta’s three purposes of education – qualification, socialization and subjectification as a theoretical framework to examine the purposes that the K-6 geography curriculum in the serves in relation to developing global citizenship competencies through an analysis of the curriculum policy. Our analysis shows that without a clear purpose for global citizenship in the curriculum policy, global understanding is consistently related to Australia as a nation state when represented at all, limiting learning opportunities to develop global thinking that supports a critical democratic discourse of global citizenship through the subjectification purpose of GCE. Instead, the K-6 geography curriculum is largely invested in socialization towards neo-liberal ends and a passing qualification function that prepares students to be ‘knowledgeable’ as they enter the world.

© 2023 Intellect Ltd
Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1386/ctl_00128_1
2023-09-12
2024-05-02
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. ACARA (n.d.), ‘HASS: Foundation to year 6’, ACARA, https://tinyurl.com/mw8ev63v. Accessed 28 December 2021.
     [Google Scholar]
  2. ACARA (2016), ‘Civics and citizenship’, ACARA, http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/humanities-and-social-sciences/civics-and-citizenship/rationale. Accessed 28 December 2021.
     [Google Scholar]
  3. ACARA (2022), ‘HASS F–6: Comparative information’, ACARA, https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/media/7026/hass_comparative_information_f-6.pdf. Accessed 28 December 2021.
     [Google Scholar]
  4. Alviar-Martin, T. and Baildon, M. (2016), ‘Issues-centred global citizenship education in Asia: Curricular challenges and possibilities in nation-centric and neoliberal times’, Curriculum Perspectives, 36:2, pp. 65–76.
     [Google Scholar]
  5. Apple, M. (2004), Ideology and Curriculum, 3rd ed., New York: RoutledgeFalmer.
     [Google Scholar]
  6. Banks, J. (2018), ‘Diversity and citizenship education in multicultural nations’, in Y.-K. Cha, S.-H. Ham and M. Lee (eds), Routledge International Handbook of Multicultural Education Research in Asia Pacific, New York: Routledge, pp. 9–22.
     [Google Scholar]
  7. Biesta, G. (2009), ‘Good education in an age of measurement: On the need to reconnect with the question of purpose in education’, Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability, 21:1, pp. 33–46.
     [Google Scholar]
  8. Biesta, G. (2020), ‘Risking ourselves in education: Qualification, socialization, and subjectification revisted’, Educational Theory, 70:1, pp. 89–104.
     [Google Scholar]
  9. Bosio, E. and Schattle, H. (2021), ‘Ethical global citizenship education: From neoliberalism to a values-based pedagogy’, Prospects, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11125-021-09571-9.
     [Google Scholar]
  10. Camicia, S. P. and Franklin, B. M. (2011), ‘What type of global community and citizenship? Tangled discourses of neoliberalism and critical democracy in curriculum and its reform’, Globalisation, Societies and Education, 9:3&4, pp. 311–22.
     [Google Scholar]
  11. Chia, Y. T. (2015), Education, Culture and the Singapore Developmental State, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
     [Google Scholar]
  12. Chia, Y. and Beard, K. (2019), ‘Teaching citizenship in the history classroom’, in T. Allender, A. Clark and R. Parkes (eds), Historical Thinking for History Teachers: A New Approach to Engaging Students and Developing Historical Consciousness, Sydney: Allen and Unwin, pp. 310–22.
     [Google Scholar]
  13. Crick, B. (2013), In Defence of Politics, New Delhi: Bloomsbury.
     [Google Scholar]
  14. Desforges, L., Jones, R. and Woods, M. (2005), ‘New geographies of citizenship’, Citizenship Studies, 9:5, pp. 439–51.
     [Google Scholar]
  15. Dewey, J. (1916), Democracy and Education, New York: Macmillan.
     [Google Scholar]
  16. Engle, S. H. and Ochoa, A. S. (1988), Education for Democratic Citizenship Decision Making in the Social Studies, New York: Teachers College Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  17. Gaudelli, W. (2009), ‘Heuristics of global citizenship discourses towards curriculum enhancement’, Journal of Curriculum Theorizing, 25:1, pp. 68–85.
     [Google Scholar]
  18. Gaudelli, W. and Heilman, E. (2009), ‘Reconceptualizing geography as democratic global citizenship education’, Teachers College Record, 111:11, pp. 2647–77.
     [Google Scholar]
  19. Giroux, H. and Bosio, E. (2021), ‘Critical pedagogy and global citizenship education’, in E. Bosio (ed.), Conversation on Global Citizenship Education: Perspectives on Research, Teaching and Learning, New York: Routledge, pp. 3–12.
     [Google Scholar]
  20. Gopinathan, S. (1996), ‘Globalisation, the state and education policy in Singapore’, Asia Pacific Journal of Education, 16:1, pp. 74–87.
     [Google Scholar]
  21. Gryl, I. and Jekel, T. (2012), ‘Re-centring geoinformation in secondary education: Toward a spatial citizenship approach’, Cartographica, 47:1, pp. 18–28.
     [Google Scholar]
  22. Hess, D. and Mcavoy, P. (2015), The Political Classroom: Evidence and Ethics in Democratic Education, New York: Routledge.
     [Google Scholar]
  23. Hilburn, J. and Maguth, B. M. (2015), ‘Spatial citizenship education: Civic teachers’ instructional priorities and approaches’, Journal of Social Studies Research, 39:2, pp. 107–18.
     [Google Scholar]
  24. Jackson, L. (2019), ‘The challenges of learning to live together: Navigating the global, national and local’, Asia Pacific Education Review, 20:2, pp. 249–57.
     [Google Scholar]
  25. Jekel, T., Gryl, I. and Schulze, U. (2015), ‘Education for spatial citizenship’, in O. Solari and J. van der Schee (eds), Geospatial Technologies and Geography Education in a Changing World: Geospatial Practices and Lessons Learned, New York: Springer, pp. 35–49.
     [Google Scholar]
  26. Kennedy, K. (2004), ‘Searching for citizenship values in an uncertain global environment’, in W. O. Lee, D. Grossman, K. Kennedy and G. P. Fairbrother (eds), Citizenship Education in Asia and the Pacific: Concepts and Issues, Hong Kong: Kluwer Academic Publishers, pp. 9–24.
     [Google Scholar]
  27. Lingard, B. (2018), ‘The Australian Curriculum: A critical interrogation of why, what and where to?’, Curriculum Perspectives, 38:1, pp. 55–65.
     [Google Scholar]
  28. Lingard, B. and McGregor, G. (2014), ‘Two contrasting Australian curriculum responses to globalisation: What students should learn or become’, The Curriculum Journal, 25:1, pp. 90–110.
     [Google Scholar]
  29. Macintyre, S. (1996), ‘Civics and citizenship education and the teaching of history’, Unicorn, 22:1, pp. 59–63.
     [Google Scholar]
  30. Oxley, L. and Morris, P. (2013), ‘Global citizenship: A typology for distinguishing its multiple conceptions’, British Journal of Educational Studies, 61:3, pp. 301–25.
     [Google Scholar]
  31. Pais, A. and Costa, M. (2020),  ‘An ideology critique of global citizenship education’, Critical Studies in Education, 61:1, https://doi.org/10.1080/17508487.2017.1318772.
     [Google Scholar]
  32. Pashby, K., Costa, M. da, Stein, S. and Andreotti, V. (2020),  ‘A meta-review of typologies of global citizenship education’, Comparative Education, 56:2, pp. 144–64.
     [Google Scholar]
  33. Peck, C. and Pashby, K. (2018), ‘Global citizenship education in North America’, in I. Davies, L. Ho, D. Kiwan, C. Peck, A. Peterson, E. Sant and Y. Waghid (eds), The Palgrave Handbook of Global Citizenship and Education, London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 51–65.
     [Google Scholar]
  34. Redden, G. (2019), ‘John Howard’s investor state: Neoliberalism and the rise of inequality in Australia’, Critical Sociology, 45:4&5, pp. 713–28.
     [Google Scholar]
  35. Reynolds, R., Macqueen, S. and Ferguson-Patrick, K. (2020),  ‘Active citizenship in a global world: Opportunities in the Australian Curriculum’, Curriculum Perspectives, 40:1, pp. 63–73.
     [Google Scholar]
  36. Richardson, G. (2008), ‘Conflicting imaginaries: Global citizenship education in Canada as a site of contestation’, in A. Britton, H. Blee and M. Peters (eds), Global Citizenship Education: Philosophy, Theory and Pedagogy, Rotterdam: Sense Publishers, pp. 115–31.
     [Google Scholar]
  37. Sahlberg, P. and Brown, J. (2017), ‘Schooling and globalization’, in N. Aloni and L. Weintrob (eds), Beyond Bystanders: Educating Leadership for a Humane Culture in a Globalising Reality, Rotterdam: Sense Publishers, pp. 33–46.
     [Google Scholar]
  38. Salter, P. (2013), ‘The problem in policy: Representations of Asia literacy in Australian education for the Asian century’, Asian Studies Review, 37:1, pp. 3–23.
     [Google Scholar]
  39. Santisteban, A., Pagès, J. and Bravo, L. (2018), ‘History education and global citizenship education’, in I. Davies, L. Ho, D. Kiwan, C. Peck, A. Peterson, E. Sant and Y. Waghid (eds), The Palgrave Handbook of Global Citizenship and Education, London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 457–72.
     [Google Scholar]
  40. Sarid, A. (2018), ‘A theory of education’, Cambridge Journal of Education, 48:4, pp. 479–94.
     [Google Scholar]
  41. Schulz, W., Ainley, J., Fraillon, J., Losito, B., Agrusti, G. and Friedman, T. (2018), Becoming Citizens in a Changing World: IEA International Civic and Citizenship Education Study 2016 International Report, Cham: SpringerOpen.
     [Google Scholar]
  42. Smith, B. (2022), ‘The certainty of nationalism in uncertain times: Disrupting the national givens of citizenship education’, in S. Riddle, A. Heffernan and D. Bright (eds), New Perspectives on Education for Democracy: Creative Responses to Local and Global Challenges, London: Routledge, pp. 167–79.
     [Google Scholar]
  43. Stará, J. and Starý, K. (2019), ‘Qualitative case study: Teaching citizenship through history education in primary schools’, Citizenship Teaching & Learning, 14:1, pp. 87–105.
     [Google Scholar]
  44. Tarozzi, M. and Carlos, A. T. (2016), Global Citizenship Education and the Crises of Multicultrualism: Comparative Perspectives, London: Bloomsbury Academic.
     [Google Scholar]
  45. Torres, C. A. (2017), ‘Why global citizenship? An intervention in search of a theory’, in C. A. Torres (ed.), Theoretical and Empirical Foundations of Critical Global Citizenship Education, New York: Routledge, pp. 14–19.
     [Google Scholar]
  46. Torres, C. A. and Bosio, E. (2020), ‘Global citizenship education at the crossroads: Globalization, global commons, common good, and critical consciousness’, Prospects (Paris), 48:3&4, pp. 99–113.
     [Google Scholar]
  47. Veugelers, W. (2020), ‘Different views on global citizenship education: Making global citizenship education more critical, political and justice-oriented’, in D. Schugurensky and C. Wolhuter (eds), Global Citizenship Education and Teacher Education: Theoretical and Practice, New York: Routledge, pp. 20–29.
     [Google Scholar]
  48. Veugelers, W. (2021), ‘How globalisation influences perspectives on citizenship education: From the social and political to the cultural and moral’, Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, 51:8, pp. 1174–89.
     [Google Scholar]
  49. Waghid, Y. (2021), ‘Teaching and learning during a pandemic: Implications for democratic citizenship education’, Citizenship Teaching & Learning, 16:2, pp. 225–28.
     [Google Scholar]
http://instance.metastore.ingenta.com/content/journals/10.1386/ctl_00128_1
Loading
  • Article Type: Article
Keyword(s): Australia; curriculum; global citizenship; global thinking; humanities and social sciences; nationalism; pedagogy

Most Cited Most Cited RSS feed

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a success
Invalid data
An error occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error