“We will develop excellent graduates who, as engaged global citizens, will be well equipped to make a positive difference in the world.” So reads one of the official strategic objectives of our institution.
As our university began to make noise about the value of “global citizenship”, we, three academics in the school of psychology, started thinking critically about this use of language. What does it mean to be a “global citizen”? Do students recognise that as the role of universities? And, given the contentiousness of “citizenship” in the UK, is the term slightly problematic?
A sector-wide concern
It is not just our institution that is talking about educating and inspiring global citizens. Global citizenship, or a global citizenship education, is increasingly bandied around in higher education as a way of articulating the purpose of education. It is endorsed by UNESCO and Oxfam, and is becoming a prominent feature of mission statements across the world, especially in the UK.
While there are multiple definitions and frameworks, a global citizenship education is, broadly, a pedagogical approach that aims to support students using their disciplinary knowledge to contribute to the greater good. Global citizenship education supports students to solve big, connected, global challenges.
As a concept, the notion of global citizenship education is clearly noble and well-intentioned. As the world faces urgent global problems – climate change, gender inequality, poverty – it is important that students feel empowered to respond to these with their expert disciplinary knowledge and skills developed through higher education.
However, it concerned us that the sector was using the term “global citizenship” in policy and mission-setting without criticality. We wondered how students felt about the purpose of their education being framed in this way, and whether they could see the value of understanding their discipline with this real-world, applied lens.
The need for student voice
So, we took our questions about global citizenship to our university, and they agreed to fund a two-year Leeds Institute for Teaching Excellence (LITE) fellowship, allowing us to explore this further.
We set up advisory boards with staff and students, where we debated the values that global citizenship encompasses and whether the term itself is useful. These lively conversations led to development of a draft set of attributes that encapsulated global citizenship education – critical thinking, reflection, ethics, social justice, interculturality, sustainability.
Importantly, the advisory boards also all largely agreed that the terms “global” and “citizenship” may be problematic. Specifically, “global” was thought to neglect the importance of acting locally, and “citizenship” carried connotations of White saviourism, tokenism, and colonialism. These were rich conversations and making space for this discussion was warmly appreciated by both staff and students.
We then empirically explored how students across different universities felt about the concept, in a paper just published in the journal Perspectives: Policy and Practice in Higher Education.
“It contains some tensions”
We surveyed 202 students from different disciplines and institutions in the UK. We asked them how they felt about global citizenship, whether they had even heard of the term, and whether they recognise it in their educational experiences. Surprisingly, despite it having a real moment in higher education policy, only 13 per cent had ever heard of the term “global citizenship education”.
We then asked students to describe, in their own words, what they thought it meant. Our thematic analysis of the students’ qualitative responses identified three themes, which captured students’ views of global citizenship education. These were consistent with the conversations of our advisory boards.
The analysis showed that students overwhelmingly saw global citizenship education as important, and they were generally sympathetic to its goals. However, they also expressed confusion about what “global citizenship” really means. Some students thought it was yet another unnecessarily ambiguous, abstract phrase used by universities that don’t meaningfully impact the student experience.
It sounds like virtue signalling without any substance.
Most importantly, like in the advisory boards, some students in our study also raised concerns about the language of both “global” and “citizenship”. Students were thoughtful and articulate in their free-text responses. They called into question how these terms were defined and, crucially, who gets to decide their definition.
I think the term ‘global perspective’ contains some tensions. Who decides what counts as a global perspective? If we all live in different cultural experiences how can we have one uniform perspective?
This included discussions of the neo-colonialist interpretations of the term, lack of clarity surrounding which global problems are considered most pressing, and concerns for how this may be practically implemented in the teaching of different disciplines.
There’s an opportunity here
Our findings point to big opportunities for the sector. If students see the value of global citizenship education as a concept but also have reservations of the use of language, this is important. It is worth considering: is global citizenship the right term?
In our previous work in psychology, we have referred to the capacity for students to use their psychological knowledge to meet local and global needs as “psychological literacy”. Could global citizenship education be rebranded as “disciplinary literacies”, to move away from the connotations that students take issue with?
That’s a question worth exploring, especially as higher education rethinks its role in shaping the next generation of informed, ethical, insightful thinkers.
