Educating World Citizens: Toward Multinational Curriculum Development

Abstract

School curricula are virtually everywhere developed nationally and intranationally—by national or local curriculum committees. Ironically, even the portion of the curriculum that involves world study (e.g., courses in world history, world geography, world problems) is developed within nations. Has the time not come to create some portions of the school curriculum multinationally? A multinational research team from nine nations used Cultural Futures Delphi procedures to interview then survey iteratively a multinational panel drawn from an array of fields in the same nine nations. The panelists reached consensus on (a) complex global crises that humans will face in the next 25years, (b) human characteristics needed for dealing with these crises, and (c) education strategies needed for developing these characteristics. Interpreting these findings, the research team developed a curriculum geared to the development of world citizens capable of dealing with the crises.

The empirical basis for adopting a civic rationale for internationalization

“…Moreover, this study demonstrates that the relationship between study abroad and international volunteerism holds when controlling not only for IaH, but also for such potentially confounding influences as the vocational interests of students and institutional size and selectivity. This suggests that study abroad is an effective intervention for fostering development within the domains of global citizenship (Parker et al 1999), including intercultural competence (Paige et al 2004), other language fluency (Segalowitz et al 2004), and interest in international affairs (Hadis 2005). Interestingly, these postulated effects of study abroad do not appear to be contingent upon IaH.…”

“…Parker et al (1999), for instance, delineated four domains of ''multidimensional'' citizenship: (1) the personal dimension encompasses one's commitment to a global civic ethic and a capacity for socially responsible acts; (2) the social dimension includes the skills necessary for effective social interaction in a multicultural world; (3) the spatial dimension refers to a sense of interconnectedness and identity across local, regional, national, and multinational levels; and (4) the temporal dimension entails both a strong grounding in historical knowledge and an ability to think creatively about solutions for present and future global problems. A review of past research indicates that study abroad and IaH may promote development within the dimensions of global citizenship, thereby increasing the propensity for international civic engagement.…”

“…A central feature of active global citizenship is a sense of personal accountability for the welfare of all humans that guides attempts to address social and environmental problems (e.g., Parker et al 1999;Dower 2003;Adams and Carfagna 2006;Appiah 2006). At the international level, formal opportunities for civic engagement have proliferated with the extraordinary growth of international non-governmental organizations (Boli and Thomas 1997), such as CARE International, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Greenpeace, to name just a few.…”

Can we escape the program? Inventing possible∼impossible futures in/for Australian educational research

“…For an excellent example of the use of a modified Delphi technique in educational research see Walter Parker et al (1999).…”

Refugee Education

“…Cultural citizenship, in the form of equality and recognition (Gutmann, 2003), may be activated in civic nation-states where national identity can represent "the amalgamation of many identities" (Appadurai, 1996, p. 157). There is often a gap, however, between this possibility and lived reality in schools, where ethnic and linguistic minority students Haste, 2004;Nussbaum, 1994;Parker, Ninomiya, & Cogan, 1999;Ramirez & Meyer, 2012). In divided societies, where the concept of national citizenship "must be regarded as problematic and contested from the outset" (A.…”