Global Citizenship Education as a Counter Colonial Project

Taming Global Citizenship Education Within Twitter’s Attention Economy

“…We thus complemented our social network analysis with an investigation into organisations’ content on Twitter. Across these two methods, the larger study highlights a strong knowledge network surrounding GCE, with dense knowledge-sharing among organisations both online and offline, albeit with significant differences in GCE positioning between those actors in the centre of the network compared with those along the periphery (Shultz et al, 2021, p. 10). Despite the consistency across the survey data and Twitter regarding the nature of the GCE network as a knowledge network, however, the Twitter data also indicated the potential impact of the platform itself in contributing to the co-creation of GCE, including through the prevalence of campaign hashtags and other traces, indicating that organisations may be utilising the platform to compete for audience attention and engagement (p. 75).…”

“…Shaped both through global policy and according to local purposes, GCE is co-constructed among networks of organisations through non-linear policy processes that cross geographic scales and education systems. The current article emerges from a larger study mapping the interaction of online and offline relationships among organisations across the Global North in shaping GCE policy and practice (Shultz et al, 2021). Working with a closed set of GCE actors (Appendix A) established based on their geographic locations in North America and Europe, level of influence on modes of GCE implementation and promotion, roles in conceptualising GCE and education efforts surrounding GCE, the larger study utilised social network analysis (Scott & Carrington, 2011) to better understand the flow of GCE through networks across this diverse region.…”

“…At the same time, the centrality of global GCE agendas to the Twitter network reveal how the ‘corporatised, professionalized, and specialized NGO reframes movements and struggles to fit within an apolitical “global policy language”’ (Mannan, 2015, in Ismail and Kamat, 2018, p. 572), a process that is augmented online through centralising hashtags promoting global policies such as Agenda 2030, around which a few dominant GCE actors congeal. Considering the many diverse and contextual GCE articulations evident around the periphery of the definitional keyword network (Figure 1), with potential to move ideas and experiences into the centre (Shultz et al, 2021, p. 10), Twitter networks appear to undermine the contributions and perhaps the survival of smaller organisations with fewer state ties, who are important for ensuring plurality and contextuality of GCE.…”

“…Reliance on networked technologies like Twitter during and following the COVID pandemic lockdowns and limits on gatherings has landed organisations in a place where they increasingly rely on marketised platforms for communication and education (Shultz & Viczko, 2021). While this study articulates the performance of GCE at a particular moment in time, it remains to be seen how different platforms impact organisational performance of GCE, as well as how Twitter’s quickly shifting landscape following the platform’s purchase by Elon Musk may further shift online expression.…”