Fostering Global Citizenship and Intercultural Education “Otherwise”

Dear Colleagues,

In an era marked by rapid globalization and mobility, the concepts of global citizenship and intercultural education have gained traction in educational discourses worldwide (Byram, 2021; Lourenço, 2018; Pinto, 2018; UNESCO, 2014). With the turn of the millennium and as societies became increasingly interconnected, facing constant major challenges related to migration, conflict, and other crises, fostering global citizenship and promoting intercultural understanding have been proclaimed indispensable for building inclusive, peaceful, and sustainable societies.

However, intercultural education and global citizenship are not consensual concepts and have been critiqued for prioritizing Western and Eurocentric perspectives and knowledge systems and promoting essentialisms that reify difference and deny heterogeneity (Andreotti and Souza, 2012; Bosio and Waghid, 2023). This has led some scholars to advocate for critical and decolonial approaches to global citizenship and intercultural education that provide alternatives to dogmatism, romanticization of alternatives, paternalism, and absolute relativism that create intercultural inertia and other barriers to enacting global justice and social change (Andreotti et al., 2018; Holmes and Corbett, 2023; Suša et al., 2021).

In light of these critiques, the main aim of this Special Issue is to provide a platform for interdisciplinary dialogue and innovative research to discuss and imagine the concepts of global citizenship and intercultural education otherwise. Researchers are invited to submit literature review papers, conceptual pieces, and original empirical research, addressing (but not limited to) the following topics:

• The multifaceted concepts of global citizenship and intercultural education, including their theoretical underpinnings, definitions, and implications for more socially just societies;
• The role of civil society organizations in enacting global citizenship and intercultural education;
• Experiential and service-learning experiences aimed at developing intercultural awareness and global citizenship locally or in international contexts;
• Curricula development at different educational levels for intercultural education and global citizenship;
• Experiences in (pre-service and in-service) teacher education to develop practitioners’ critical intercultural awareness and global citizenship;
• Classroom practices that encourage learners to scrutinize their biases, challenge dominant narratives, and actively contribute to social change at different educational levels;
• Internationalization at home and internationalization of the curriculum to promote intercultural learning and global citizenship;
• Critical intercultural pedagogy, critical global citizenship, and decolonial approaches to social justice.

Andreotti, V. de O., & Souza, L. M. (2012). Postcolonial perspectives on global citizenship education. Routledge.

Andreotti, V., Stein, A., Pashby, K., Susa, R., Amsler, S. & Gesturing Decolonial Futures Collective (2018). Mobilising different conversations about global justice in education: Toward alternative futures in uncertain times. Policy & Practice: A Development Education Review, 26, 9-41.

Bosio, E., & Wagihd, Y. (Eds.). (2023). Global citizenship education in the Global South: Educators’ perceptions and practices. Brill.

Byram, M. (2021). Teaching and assessing intercultural communicative competence. Revisited. Multilingual Matters.

Holmes P., & Corbett, J. (Eds.) (2023). Critical intercultural pedagogy for difficult times. Conflict, crisis and creativity. Routledge.

Lourenço, M. (2018). Global, international and intercultural education: three contemporary approaches to teaching and learning. On the Horizon, 26(2), 61-71. https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.1108/OTH-06-2018-095.

Pinto, S. (2018). Intercultural competence in Higher Education: academics’ perspectives. On The Horizon, 26(2), 137-147.

UNESCO. (2014). Global citizenship education: Preparing learners for the challenges of the 21st century. UNESCO.

Suša, R., Andreotti, V., Stein, S., Ahenakew, C., Čajkova, T., Siwek, D., Cardoso, C., & Kui, N. (2021). Global citizenship education and sustainability otherwise. In S. Saúde, M. A. Raposo, N. Pereira & A. I. Rodrigues (Eds.), Teaching and learning practices that promote sustainable development and active citizenship (pp. 1-23). IGI Global.

Dr. Susana Pinto
Dr. Mónica Lourenço
Guest Editors

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• global citizenship
• intercultural education
• social justice
• decolonial approaches
• educational practices