What is global education?

Global education is an educational approach to understanding how our globalised world works. Globalisation brings with it both opportunities and threats that people face every day. How can we learn to reap these benefits and at the same time avoid the dangers and reduce the harms of globalisation? Global education has answers to these questions. It is an approach that helps us prepare for the daily challenges of the globalised world and understand that our choices affect the lives of others as well as our common future.

Definition of Global Education by the North South Centre of the Council of Europe (2002):

Global education is a pedagogical approach that fosters multiple perspectives and the deconstruction of stereotypes and builds on a learner-centred approach to foster critical awareness of global challenges and engagement for sustainable lifestyles.

Global Education competences build on development education, human rights education, education for sustainability, education for peace and conflict prevention and intercultural education, all being the global dimension of education for citizenship.

Definition of Development Education by CONCORD (2004):

Development education is an active learning process, founded on values of solidarity, equality, inclusion and co-operation. It enables people to move from basic awareness of international development priorities and sustainable human development, through understanding of the causes and effects of global issues, to personal involvement and informed action.

Development education fosters the full participation of all citizens in world-wide poverty eradication, and the fight against exclusion. It seeks to influence more just and sustainable economic, social, environmental, human rights based national and international policies.

Why do we need it?

The world has fundamentally changed compared to when today’s teachers were students. By its very nature, the school system is slower to respond to change, but it is in our common interest that future generations are equipped to act responsibly in a rapidly globalising world. The Anthropolis Association wishes to help teachers and students alike in this process of preparing and training.

How can global education be integrated into education?

Global education is not a subject in its own right, but an approach. The aim of global education is to make students aware of global issues through traditional areas of education in order to help them make responsible choices about their daily lives. In other words, it enables them to make responsible decisions about what they eat, how they get around, what goods and products they buy, what they do when these products become useless and end up in the bin, how they manage the flood of information from countless sources and how they deal with cultures different from their own. Any subject can be taught with a global approach without changing the curriculum. Some areas of global education lend themselves easily to integration not only into geography, history or environmental education lessons, but also into maths or physics, where important global knowledge can be imparted.

What are the main areas of global education?

With globalisation directly present every minute and impacting on almost every aspect of our lives, it is hard to find a topic that does not relate to global education. For easier understanding, the vast subject of global education can be divided into the following areas.

• • • • human rights education
      • education for environmental awareness and sustainability
      • peace education
      • intercultural studies and religious tolerance
      • education for active citizenship
      • critical thinking

Why teach Global Education?

Global education enriches the concept of learning by highlighting global interdependencies that connect people, places and events all around the world. By adopting this approach, the school system can only benefit, for a number of reasons.

1. 1. 1. Our world is getting smaller. All of us – young people and adults alike – influence the lives of people from all around the globe, and vice versa. In order to function effectively in this interconnected world and shape this mutual influence positively, young people need to understand processes behind what we now call the global village.
      2. Global education is not only about knowledge of global issues; it also gives a good opportunity to develop key skills and attitudes which are considered crucial in quality education. They include, among others, critical thinking, expressing one’s point of view, and teamwork. Global education prepares learners to face contemporary challenges born from the global context of our local lives and develop the ability to take informed action.
      3. Students often learn about global issues from the media. They are intrigued by them and want to understand them better (e.g. migration, climate change, international trade). Global education is able to channel this curiosity. Introducing new themes gives an opportunity for all students to become active, including those who have not worked actively before.
      4. Global education doesn’t require extra work from teachers or students. The school environment provides many opportunities to systematically include global education into lessons and extracurricular classes. It does not need to be an extra work for teachers or students.