Constructions of global citizenship: an Albertan case study

Abstract

Global citizenship education in Alberta represents multiple, conflicting frameworks. Thus, there is a great need to understand how global citizenship is constructed in real school contexts in order to attend to how global citizenship might work towards socially just aims versus promote colonially-tainted, Eurocentric understandings of the world. This qualitative case study centered on students and teachers from The Relations Program, a global citizenship initiative housed in a large urban high school in Alberta. A social justice theoretical lens was used to highlight the relational and constructed nature of global citizenship and to shed light on furthering socially just global citizenship. The findings suggest discourses present within the global citizenship initiative represent a condition of ‘binariality’ in which Western-centric knowledge is promoted. Also, they suggest students’ and teachers’ agency is impacted by their reified understandings of globalization and global structures. Based on the case study findings, interpreted through the lens of social justice theory, it is suggested that an Outward In model be considered for global citizenship education, which includes an understanding of the local and the global as dialectically intertwined as opposed to separate. An interrogation of worldview, along with the realization of political responsibility, is suggested to enhance socially just global citizenship education.