Delinking global issues in northern Europe classrooms

Abstract

This article builds from scholarship in Environmental Education Research (EER) and Critical Global Citizenship Education calling for more explicit attention to how teaching global issues is embedded in the colonial matrix of power. We also consider the extent to which recent calls in EER for explicit attention to coloniality connect to discussions about posthuman thinking through a shared critical reading of modernity. We argue that ethical approaches to global issues, and pedagogical processes and practices that would contribute to them, are possible only if we recognize the relations of power that have shaped history and engage with critical modes of inquiry. Furthermore, we argue for the need to engage deeply with and confront historical patterns in concrete pedagogical practices in order to interrupt our own epistemic, political, ethical, and strategic place and categories. Finally, we will draw upon an example from our classroom-based research to consider how our findings relate to what is being called for in the critical scholarship of praxis, as informed by empirical studies. Decoloniality as praxis Our collaborative work takes up a common critique across Environmental Education Research (EER) and critical work in Global Citizenship Education (GCE) regarding reproductions of colonial systems of power. While there is substantive scholarship and theoretical work in this area (

A Didactic Model of Sustainability Commitment

“…A sustainability engagement based on emotions may lack critical intellectual insights derived from e.g., postcolonial and decolonial studies. Such an engagement could run the risk of naïve activities characterized by "salvationism" and "ahistoricism", i.e., activities that portray other people as being in need or frame help as a burden of the fittest and thus fail to take the historical past of oppression and exploitation into account [48][49][50]75]. Without a critical perspective, there is a risk that the political and ethical nature of sustainability issues will be hidden.…”

“…Another is that teachers' choices of the "what" content should include a critical perspective or standpoint in the sustainability learning process. Although we acknowledge the insights into the development of a critical perspective on the teaching content that Klafki has offered, we also want to draw attention to postcolonial and decolonial perspectives as critical modes that can illuminate the ethical principle of responsibility for others and offer alternative perspectives on international development by challenging ethnocentrism and addressing issues of complicity [48][49][50]. Other examples are post-humanist perspectives that stress humans' complicity in the significant damage to ecosystems, ethical relations with more than human beings [51][52][53] and critical materialist perspectives that take the historical and critical commitments of environmental education seriously [54].…”

Using the SDGs for global citizenship education: definitions, challenges, and opportunities

“…IBL may disarm teachers who have been conditioned in the very structures that are the target of transformation and help cultivate a learning environment that acknowledges we do not yet have answers to the complex issues under investigation. Sund and Pashby (2020) observe the challenges educators face in teaching global issues, "given the complex ways teachers are or not prepared to engage in ethical global issues pedagogy," nor confront colonial systems of power (p. 166). To move beyond surface-level inquiry, Andreotti's HEADS UP tool helps educators deepen the level of questioning around "seven problematic historical patterns of thinking and relationships" that often frame educational engagements with global issues: hegemony, ethnocentrism, ahistoricism, depoliticization, salvationism, uncomplicated solutions, and paternalism (2012, p. 2).…”

Od kolonialnega učenja do izobraževanja za trajnostni razvoj

“…V mednarodnem prostoru je v angleški literaturi (npr. Bourn, 2014Bourn, , 2015McCloskey, 2014;Milana in Tarozzi, 2019;Sund in Pashby, 2020) najvidnejših pet sorodnih izobraževalnih konceptov: globalno izobraževanje, globalno učenje, izobraževanje za globalno državljanstvo, izobraževanje za razvoj in izobraževanje za trajnostni razvoj. 1 V nadaljevanju bo vsak izmed njih natančneje predstavljen -njegov razvoj, opredelitve in kritike, osrednje organizacije, ki v različnih kontekstih uporabljajo posamezen koncept, ter njihove ključne skupne značilnosti.…”

“…Globalno izobraževanje je eno od treh prioritetnih področij delovanja tega centra (poleg spodbujanja politične participacije mladih in opolnomočenja žensk), vsa področja pa so zdaj postavljena v okvir 1 Med sorodnimi koncepti se pojavljajo še globalna vzgoja, globalne perspektive/dimenzije v izobraževanju, globalno mladinsko delo, globalno učenje za spodbujanje TR, ozaveščanje za razvoj, izobraževanje za človekove pravice, izobraževanje za globalni razvoj, izobraževanje za globalno družbeno pravičnost, izobraževanje za mednarodno razumevanje, izobraževanje za mir, izobraževanje za planetarno državljanstvo (poudarek na okoljevarstvu), izobraževanje za trajnost, kritična globalna pedagogika, kulturno vzdržna/trajnostna pedagogika, okoljsko izobraževanje, pedagogika za globalno in okoljsko družbeno pravičnost, svetovne študije, učenje globalnih veščin, učenje v globalni družbi, učenje za demokratično državljanstvo, učenje za evropsko državljanstvo ter zeleno izobraževanje. prispevanja k ciljem TR (CTR) OZN (Svet Evrope, 2020). Del aktivnosti centra je usmerjen v Evropo in dvig ozaveščenosti o globalni soodvisnosti in solidarnosti z mladinskimi programi in izobraževanjem (kar Center sever-jug običajno imenuje globalno izobraževanje, občasno pa izobraževanje za globalno državljanstvo), del pa v druge dele sveta ter spodbujanje dialoga in solidarnostnih politik (Cabezudo idr., 2012).…”