Bosio, Emiliano Tiberio; (2020) Implementing Principles of Global Citizenship Education into University Curricula. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

Abstract

Global citizenship education (GCE) calls for the education of values and knowledge that help learners to become informed and responsible global citizens. Yet there has been relatively little coverage on how academics in different geographic locations perceive GCE and implement it into university curricula and classroom practices. By focussing on these areas, the present study examined how academics located in Japan, the United States and the United Kingdom implement principles of GCE into university curricula. A case study methodology was used with the administration of an open-ended questionnaire and follow-up semi-structured interviews, documentary analysis and classroom observations. The four case studies are: Soka University in Japan; The University of California, Los Angeles and Columbia University Teachers College in the United States; and Liverpool Hope University in the United Kingdom. Descriptive and thematic analyses were conducted, and a synthesis of the findings was developed. The study contributes to knowledge by conceptualising a theoretical framework for GCE, the meta-critical. Meta-critical GCE is entrenched in critical pedagogy and oriented to prioritise social justice. It critically engages with a variety of theories of GCE examined in this study: neoliberal, cosmopolitan, humanist, value-creating, transformative and critical. These GCE positions were organised into four value-orientations for academics: economic, individualistic, critical and meta. The study found that, whilst an economic and individualistic value-orientation is more evident in Japan than elsewhere, academics agree on the purpose of GCE, which they perceive as a critical and forward-looking pedagogical framework aimed at enhancing students’ values and knowledge such as critical cognisance, inclusive self/identity, and ecotistical/ecocritical views. The academics believe that GCE potentially promotes a reorientation of learners’ responsibilities, towards an orientation that adheres to the belief that knowing without acting is insufficient. The study reveals that academics’ practices related to GCE in the four case studies do illustrate how established GCE discourses—for example the humanistic-cosmopolitan and transformative-critical—are adapted alongside increasing public recognition of the need to cultivate critical, values-based teaching and learning in the context of global interdependent societies. Based on the findings, the study concludes by further developing the meta-critical theoretical framework into a proposal for a pedagogical instrument that academics can utilise to further engage with the notion of GCE through the dimensions of economic, individualistic, critical and meta. With development, the framework has potential for application in future research and evaluation of the complex teaching and learning processes involved in GCE.

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