Global Citizenship Education: Meanings and (Mis)Intentions

Abstract

This chapter locates the analysis of empirical data that follows in Chaps. 3, 4 and 5 within the existing, international literature base on global citizenship education. The first section examines various positions on global citizenship within the existing literature, including various typologies that have sought to represent the various and varied ways of conceiving global citizenship education briefly. In doing so the chapter pays attention to key critical concerns about how global citizenship education serves both neoliberal and colonial agendas. The second section surveys existing empirical research that has examined educators’ and students’ perceptions, understandings, practices and experiences of global citizenship education. The third section briefly sets out central aspects of the “globally oriented citizen” in order to argue that the concept of the globally oriented citizen provides a helpful frame for global citizenship education, an argument returned to in the book’s conclusion in light of the empirical data reported in Chaps. 3, 4 and 5.