This article outlines the development of a global citizenship education programme for three to six year olds. The programme, entitled Just Children, was created by Education for a Just World, a partnership between an Irish Development Non-Governmental Organisation (DNGO), Trócaire, and the Centre for Human Rights and Citizenship Education located in St Patrick's College, Drumcondra, Dublin.1 The programme was developed through three phases of research. The first phase examined young children's engagement with global justice issues; the second phase explored possible strategies for including global citizenship education in early childhood educational settings; and the third phase tested a draft global citizenship education programme. This article explores the key principles integral to educating for and about global justice and, responding to the results of research as well as the early childhood education landscape, arrives at strategies for introducing global justice work into early childhood settings. This article suggests that introducing a global perspective into early childhood education, using open-ended and active methodologies, supports the development of global citizenship skills, attitudes and understanding.Keywords: early childhood, empathy, essentialism, fairness, global citizenship, postcolonialism, poverty, stereotype, resource development
IntroductionGlobal citizenship education promotes understanding of global issues; it encourages critical engagement with those issues and is cognisant of their complexity; it addresses the culpability of western countries in global poverty; and supports local responsibility for global concerns (Andreotti, 2006;Oxfam, 2006;Bryan, 2008;Davies, 2006;Krause, 2010). As an education in poverty, complexity and culpability, the suitability of global citizenship education for early childhood education may be perceived by educators as problematic and its application here extremely challenging. However research indicates that children begin to develop prejudices relating to (Ruble and Martin, 1998) as well as conceptions of fairness and a capacity for empathy (Killen, Breton, Ferguson and Handler, 1994; Killen and Smetana, 1999; Tisak 1995 cited in Killen et al, 2001) from a young age. Furthermore, as this article will argue, if global citizenship education in primary and secondary schools is to achieve a level of complexity and deeper understanding it needs to be more than an occasional and media driven learning 'stir in' (Bracken and Bryan, 2010), with learning being scaffolded from an early age. This paper sets out a response to the question of how to begin global citizenship education with young children in ways that are appropriate, that contribute to the development of global citizenship skills, attitudes and knowledge and that use suitable, empowering and learner centred pedagogy.
Theoretical Framework Global Citizenship EducationGlobal citizenship education, which, for the purposes of this article, could also be referred to as global education or developme...