Education for Global Citizenship at Universities

Abstract

This article explores how three different learning spaces could be appropriate for developing a sense of global citizenship among university students. We draw on an interview study conducted at the Universitat Politècnica of Valencia (UPV) between 2010 and 2012. The spaces analyzed were two electives devoted to international cooperation, a mobility program that took place mainly in Latin American countries and a student-led university group. We examined the three spaces in terms of expansion of capabilities and agency related to global citizenship and cosmopolitanism using a conceptual framework that synthesizes Nussbaum's and Sen's capability approach with Delanty's critical cosmopolitanism to explore the limits and potentialities of those three spaces. Although the exploratory character of our study cannot allow us to generalize our findings, what we can affirm is each of these areas has the potentiality to enhance global citizenship but with nuances, differences, and complementarities. The electives appear to be good spaces for the critical learning capability, while international mobility is a strong enabler for narrative imagination capabilities. Students belonging to Mueve showed elements of these capabilities plus a very strong emphasis on agency, which does not occur in the other two learning spaces. Critical cosmopolitan process happened both in Mueve and Meridies. In the student-led group, this cosmopolitan process begins with the local, while in the internships was the global encounter that initiates a cosmopolitan reflection.

Global citizenship: Buzzword or new instrument for educational change?

“…Furthermore, this approach stresses the need to provide opportunities for reflexive learning and critical thinking, allowing students to become active and responsible citizens. Through exposure to situations with different cultures and groups, the critical approach focuses on individual responsibility for social change (Aktas et al, 2017;Boni & Calabuig, 2015). This approach is in line with Torres's (2009) work that advocates for critical social and political perspectives in citizenship.…”

Untitled

“…The other aspect of IoHE and GC that was investigated to some extent is the internationalisation of the curriculum (IoC). According to scholars like Boni and Calbuig (2015) and Coryel et al (2014), IoC equally has a significant positive effect on the GC of university students. In a qualitative study by Boni and Calabuig of 2015 on the behaviors of students who were exposed to an internationalised curriculum, for example, it was reported that an international curriculum offered the students a framework to interpret the world, and to reflect and think about the social injustices in it.…”

“…Contextually, this study took place at Makerere University in Uganda. It was premised on the realisation that the creation of global citizens is now a widely recognised university responsibility (Boni & Calbuig, 2015;Hanson, 2010). Yet, the efforts by universities in Uganda -Makerere in particular, to internationalise seemed not to have yielded sufficient dividends.…”

Una propuesta didáctica para introducir la educación para la ciudadanía global en la enseñanza universitaria

“…Trabajar en el aula universitaria de forma que el estudiantado avance como ciudadanía global para que se respete la diversidad y los derechos humanos requiere de una propuesta pedagógica que enmarque el proceso de enseñanza aprendizaje. Hemos optado por la educación para la ciudadanía global (Boni y Calabuig, 2017;Boni, Lopez-Fogues y Walker, 2016) por la importancia que concede a la diversidad, la interculturalidad y a la justicia social en el proceso de enseñanza-aprendizaje. Se concede mucha importancia al acercamiento a otras culturas, al entendimiento de las diferencias culturales, a la interculturalidad, a los derechos humanos y a la paz (Cantón Mayo, Valle Flórez, Arias Gago, Baelo Álvarez y Cañón Rodríguez, 2010;Vinagre, 2014).…”