Global citizenship education: A new ‘moral pedagogy’ for the 21st century?

Abstract

In the past two decades global citizenship education (GCE) has become established in national and international education policy. This article focuses on the emergence of GCE in the educational discourse of the Province of Trento in northern Italy and outlines how policymakers and teachers construct GCE as a pedagogical framework for schooling in the 21st century. Combining the perspectives that emerge from the scholarly literature with the findings of a qualitative study based on Constructivist and Informed Grounded Theory, the article proposes a typology of GCE ideal-types. The typology illustrates two ‘mainstream ideal-types’ of GCE (neo-liberal human capitalism and cosmopolitan humanism) and two ‘critical ideal-types’ (social-justice activism and critical counter practice). In the province studied, the dominant perspective is cosmopolitan humanism. GCE is essentially conceptualised as a ‘new moral pedagogy’ that reflects adherence and commitment to a universal moral structure based on humanistic cosmopolitan values. The author believes that critical GCE perspectives in line with social-justice activism and critical counter practice should find expression in both policies, curricula and practices. However, this is recognised as a challenge which could be partially addressed through teacher education and an alliance between academia and practice.

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