Global Citizenship – New Pedagogical Aim or Market Strategy?

The development of education in the globalization context poses a lot of questions, being quite a challenge for scholars. The analysis of such new trends as integration processes in education, the growth of educational migration, the involvement of international organizations and NGOs, and the education policy of national states leads to referring to the seemingly established concepts of particular features of education.

The urgency to implement educational reforms is stressed by various international organizations. One of the promulgated aims of these new educational projects is bringing up global citizens.

In recent years the concept of “global citizenship” came into a broad use in European and American educational and public discourses. However, its meaning remains blurred, and its content is interpreted very broadly.

Analysis of the global education concept takes into account current sociological and political science discourses on the concepts of citizenship, nation and state. Previous understanding of citizenship as membership in nation-state gives way to a new variety of interpretations, which are based on the concept of universal deterritorised human rights.

The concept of education for global citizenship captures in what way this new understanding of citizenship and identity is interpreted in pedagogical discourse. Global citizenship is treated as a social engagement with the voluntary obligations undertaken, and priority is given to civil rights of the individual. It still stays unclear in what way state educational system as the key element in nation state building process should foster global identity formation.

Besides for many educational institutions and so called international students the engagement in “global citizen” educational programs is only a pragmatic tool to improve economic chances in the global educational and job markets.