global citizenship in contemporary world essay

• Tools and Resources
• Customer Services
• Conflict Studies
• Development
• Environment
• Foreign Policy
• Human Rights
• International Law
• Organization
• International Relations Theory
• Political Communication
• Political Economy
• Political Geography
• Political Sociology
• Politics and Sexuality and Gender
• Qualitative Political Methodology
• Quantitative Political Methodology
• Security Studies
• Share This Facebook LinkedIn Twitter

Article contents

Global citizenship.

• April R. Biccum April R. Biccum School of Politics and International Relations, Australian National University
• https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190846626.013.556
• Published online: 19 November 2020

The concept of “Global Citizenship” is enjoying increased currency in the public and academic domains. Conventionally associated with cosmopolitan political theory, it has moved into the public domain, marshaled by elite actors, international institutions, policy makers, nongovernmental organizations, and ordinary people. At the same time, scholarship on Global Citizenship has increased in volume in several domains (International Law, Political Theory, Citizenship Studies, Education, and Global Business), with the most substantial growth areas in Education and Political Science, specifically in International Relations and Political Theory. The public use of the concept is significant in light of what many scholars regard as a breakdown and reconfiguration of national citizenship in both theory and practice. The rise in its use is indicative of a more general change in the discourse on citizenship. It has become commonplace to offer globalization as a cause for these changes, citing increases in regular and irregular migration, economic and political dispossession owing to insertion in the global economy, the ceding of sovereignty to global governance, the pressure on policy caused by financial flows, and cross-border information-sharing and political mobilization made possible by information communications technologies (ICTs), insecurities caused by environmental degradation, political fragmentation, and inequality as key drivers of change. Global Citizenship is thus one among a string of adjectives attempting to characterize and conceptualize a transformative connection between globalization, political subjectivity, and affiliation. It is endorsed by elite global actors and the subject of an educational reform movement. Some scholarship observes empirical evidence of Global Citizenship, understood as active, socially and globally responsible political participation which contributes to global democracy, within global institutions, elites, and the marginalized themselves. Arguments for or against a cosmopolitan sensibility in political theory have been superseded by both the technological capability to make global personal legal recognition a possibility, and by the widespread endorsement of Global Citizenship among the Global Education Policy regime. In educational scholarship Global Citizenship is regarded as a form of contemporary political being that needs to be socially engineered to facilitate the spread of global democracy or the emergence of new political arrangements. Its increasing currency among a diverse range of actors has prompted a variety of attempts either to codify or to study the variety of usages in situ. As such the use of Global Citizenship speaks to a central methodological problem in the social sciences: how to fix key conceptual variables when the same concepts are a key aspect of the behavior of the actors being studied? As a concept, Global Citizenship is also intimately associated with other concepts and theoretical traditions, and is among the variety of terms used in recent years to try to reconceptualize changes it the international system. Theoretically it has complex connections to cosmopolitanism, liberalism, and republicanism; empirically it is the object of descriptive and normative scholarship. In the latter domain, two central cleavages repeat: the first is between those who see Global Citizenship as the redress for global injustices and the extension of global democracy, and those who see it as irredeemably capitalist and imperial; the second is between those who see evidence for Global Citizenship in the actions and behavior of a wide range of actors, and those who seek to socially engineer Global Citizenship through educational reform.

• globalization
• global governance
• cosmopolitanism
• citizenship
• global civil society

What is Global Citizenship?

Global Citizenship (hereafter GC) as a concept is enjoying some currency in the public and academic domains. The theory and study of GC has been a growth industry especially in philosophy, international relations, and education, and it has been adopted as a central educational reform under the Sustainable Development Goals and endorsed by major international organizations, think tanks, and the expanded regime of Global Education Policy (Mundy, 2016 ). What is meant by GC varies between political actors and academics. The academic literature on GC divides into two branches. The normative theoretical branch has a number of overlaps and engagements with cosmopolitan, liberal, and republican political theory. The empirical scholarship, meanwhile, observes GC’s existence in individual behavior and the structures of transnational organization; in the case of education, empirical scholarship offers ways and means of producing GC through a reform of pedagogy, curriculum, and educational design. It is commonplace to begin any discussion of GC with an account of cosmopolitan political theory dating back to the ancients. The problem with this account is that these theoretical arguments for and against GC have been superseded both by its increasingly widespread use among political actors and by the technological capability to make it something of an institutional reality. GC is no longer simply a theoretical or philosophical discussion but is increasingly also a diversified field of empirical study. The problem with the study of GC empirically is that it is one of those conceptual variables that cuts across scholarship and public use. It is a concept, according to Reinhart Koselleck’s understanding of that term, in that it is an inherently contestable carrier of signification with multiple meanings (Koselleck, 2002 ).

What is true of GC is equally true of citizenship. Both are used by political actors and institutions, and also by academics, to inform empirical study; they are equally both concepts that inform normative political theory about the ordering foundations of society. They thus straddle the distance near (ordinary usage), distance far (academic and technocratic usage), and the normative theoretical of both political actors and academics (other conceptual variables with a similar bifurcation are democracy and the state) (Ferguson & Mansbach, 2010 ; Mitchell, 1991 ). This entanglement speaks to methodological problems at the heart of all social science endeavor: the use of the same concepts by political actors, institutions, and academics; and the problem of trying to fix those concepts for the purposes of advancing knowledge, or equally, trying to elaborate them philosophically for the purposes of creating social change. In the case of both citizenship and GC, the attempt to use various methodological techniques to fix their meaning and tie them to concrete empirical phenomena (Sartori, 1984 ) is unproductive because all these concepts are quintessential examples of the fact that political actors are themselves also self-conscious conceptualizers. Moreover, the way GC is conceptualized by certain political actors is currently having concrete political outcomes (Biccum, 2018b , 2020 ). Trying to improve its study by using Sartori’s ladder of abstraction to parse it into conceptual precision will not do when conceptualization is itself an integral part of its political impact and institutionalization. Moreover, there is increasing overlap between academic scholarship and the concept’s political operationalization, particularly in education.

Interpretive social science offers a way of grappling with this complexity by recognizing what a concept is (i.e., the function in language that allows for multiplicity of meaning and abstraction) (Koselleck, 2002 ), the ubiquity of the use of concepts for all language users (Geertz, 1973 ), and methodological techniques that are consistent with the properties of language and its study in use (Fairclough, 1989 ; Schaffer, 2016 ). The interpretivist approach is more appropriate for fleshing out the complexity of defining GC by recognizing that the rise in its use both academically and politically is in response to changing circumstances, but also and concurrently that its take up is an attempt to by actors to change political circumstances. The interpretivist approach equips scholars with a sensitivity for assessing how and why GC’s use is significant. GC is one among a variety of adjectival variations on citizenship, but it is one that has taken greater hold than any of its rivals and, depending on who uses it and how, has implications for a shift in identity and allegiance from the national to the global. Therefore, its increased use by elites and operationalization in policy to affect change should be recognized as politically significant. Interpretive social science provides the analytical and methodological tools to ground, locate, and elucidate the various meanings of GC in theory and in practice (Schaffer, 2016 ).

Citizenship, as a concept, is also both a variably applied political institution and a contested theoretical concept. It emerged as a body of study in its own right in the 20th century only to be problematized toward the end of the century with a variety of qualifying adjectives, including postnational citizenship (Rose, 1996 ), the denationalization of citizenship (Soysal, 1994 ), extrastatal citizenship (Lee, 2014 ), cultural citizenship (Richardson, 1998 ), minority citizenship (Yuval-Davis, 1997 ), ecological citizenship (van Steenbergen, 1994 ), cosmopolitan citizenship (Held, 1995 ), consumer citizenship (Stevenson, 1997 ), and mobility citizenship (Urry, 1990 ). The meaning and theorization of citizenship itself in the context of globalization have undergone some considerable contestation. In the late 1990s, sociologist John Urry noted the contradiction that just as everyone is seeking to be a citizen of an existing national society, globalization is changing what it means to be a citizen (Urry, 1999 ). For some theorists of citizenship, it has normative dimensions. Brian Turner in particular made a distinction between a conservative view of citizenship as passive and private, and a more revolutionary idea of citizenship as active and public (Bowden, 2003 ; Turner, 1990 ). For theorists of citizenship it is a mode of political membership that has as a performative nature, even by those who are not officially recognized. Understood this way, it is a quintessentially democratic political subjectivity, where agency is expressed in struggles for rights and inclusion for the benefit of self and others.

Historicized as an actually existing political institution, citizenship can be shown to be a mechanism of differentiation through rights allocation, inclusion, and exclusion that is unavoidably connected to state and imperial violence, interest, and power. For critical scholars, it is gendered, racialized, and colonial and has been a mechanism not for the expansion of civil, political, and social rights (as canonized in Marshall’s 1949 account) but as a means of conferring those rights on the few (Isin & Nyers, 2014b ; Marshall, 1949 ). Editors of the Routledge Handbook of GC Studies survey the various ways in which national citizenship has been conceptualized and how Citizenship Studies must be revised in light of globalization (Isin & Nyers, 2014b ; Lee, 2014 ). A work in “critical Citizenship Studies,” this volume notes that citizenship has been defined as membership, status, practice, or performance, with each definition harboring presumptions about politics and agency. To overcome these shortcomings, the editors offer a minimal definition which contains conceptual complexity. For Isin and Nyers, citizenship is “an institution, mediating rights between the subjects of politics and the polity” (Isin & Nyers, 2014a , p. 1). The word “polity” enables a conceptualization of diverse political entities and overlapping governance configurations. “Rights mediation” recognizes that citizenship is inclusive and exclusive simultaneously and that it is most often expanded through political struggle. Finally, the “Subject” is a way of understanding political behavior on the part of people with no formal institutional recognition. The volume aims to address the fact that Citizenship Studies is globalizing because people around the world are articulating their struggles through the political institution of citizenship, and they see this struggle as the performative dimension or enactment of citizenship in political behavior that makes claims upon states and governing institutions. This is why scholars are engaged in “a competition to invent new names to describe the political subjects that are enacting political agency today. Whether it is the Activist or the Actant, the Militant or the Multitude” (Isin & Nyers, 2014a , p. 5). Contributors to this volume are highly skeptical of the concept of GC, but this is precisely the kind of active enactment of rights and responsibilities that scholars of GC see as evidence of its existence, or endorsement for its contribution to the globalization of democracy. Thus, the emergence of GC is part and parcel of the very contestation over citizenship that contributors to this volume see as evidence for grassroots political agency and democratic political change.

As a concept, GC is often linked with the body of cosmopolitan political thought dating back to antiquity (Heater, 1996 ), but this association needs to be qualified. Its increased usage in the early 21st century among scholars, philosophers, policymakers, global institutions, and educators has been prolific, leading to several attempts in the literature to codify its various meanings (Fanghanel & Cousin, 2012 ; Hicks, 2003 ; Sant, Davies, Pashby, & Shultz, 2018 ), or to study its variation in use empirically (Gaudelli, 2009 ). Some have argued that its conceptual heterogeneity is strategically advantageous for those who are using it in practice, and political actors particularly in education have devoted a substantial amount of time to conceptualizing it for the purposes of its articulation in policy (Biccum, 2018b ; Hartmeyer, 2015 ). In the education space, an agreed-upon meaning organized around attitudes, aptitudes, and behavior is now being utilized by international organizations (specifically the United Nations, United Nations Education Science and Culture Organisation, and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), which are disseminating their preferred definitions through the expanded global education community via declarations, policy advice, research, information portals, and international conferences. Attempts to codify the different meanings of GC in the academic scholarship have used different metatheoretical concepts to understand the systematic organization of meaning, among them heuristics (Gaudelli, 2009 ), discourse (Karlberg, 2008 ; Parmenter, 2011 ; Schattle, 2015 ; Shukla, 2009 ), ideology (Pais & Costa, 2017 ; Schattle, 2008 ), and typology (Andreotti, 2014 ; Oxley & Morris, 2013 ). For all this definitional and metatheoretical categorization, what cuts across all are the notions that a global citizen is a type of person (endowed with a certain kind of knowledge, values, attitudes, and aptitudes) and that GC is expressed in behavior (always active). Oxley and Morris’s ( 2013 ) codification is often cited in educational scholarship that is working to provide the pedagogical and theoretical foundations for producing Global Citizens (Bosio & Torres, 2019 ) or critically contesting existing practices and theoretical models of GC education in order to make them live up to what both scholarly factions regard as its emancipatory potential (Andreotti, 2014 ).

The various attempts to codify the use of GC in situ tend to make a distinction between hegemonic use and attempts by both scholars and political actors to expand its meaning for political purposes. In this context Oxley and Morris ( 2013 ) make a distinction between “cosmopolitan based” GC Education, which is further nuanced by political, moral, economic, and cultural considerations; and “advocacy based,” which is inflected by social, critical, environmental, and spiritual features. This distinction effectively codifies the differences between official uses of GC by elite actors, and the contestations from critical practitioners and scholars who seek to expand its official meaning (a) to include the grassroots activity of activists; and (b) in educational policy and practice, to include knowledge of global capital and European colonial history, a normative attitude against the inequalities and injustices these have produced, and the aptitude to hold elite actors to account (Andreotti & Souza, 2011 ). Gaudelli ( 2009 ) and Schattle ( 2008 ) based their discursive and ideological codifications on methodologically informed definitions of discourse and ideology and an empirical focus on the use of the concept in multiple sites. Gaudelli identifies five different discursive framings (neoliberal, nationalist, Marxist, world justice and governance, and cosmopolitan), and Schattle ( 2008 ) deploys an ideological analysis to determine whether the discourse of GC in education constitutes a new “globalist” ideology. He finds that in fact it remains inflected by varieties of liberal ideology, even its critical variants, because of its emphasis on human rights, equality, and social justice.

Despite contestations over meaning and use, there are those in the literature who regard GC as the conceptual iteration that underpins a hegemonic ordering of a global governance to further globalize the market by creating market-ready “neoliberal subjectivities” (Chapman, Ruiz-Chapman, & Eglin, 2018 ), or who argue that the proselytizing gesture of its proponents and its rootedness in Western liberal democratic culture make it inescapably imperial (Andreotti & Souza, 2011 ). A common accusation is that GC is an attempt to put a progressive veneer on the global market. In addition, definitions of GC that link it to worldly cosmopolitan values, high-tech skills, and enough cross-cultural knowledge to enable flexibility and adaptability map neatly onto the kinds of subjectivities one will find among the world’s most privileged and highly mobile workers. For critics, there is evidence for this critique in the individualizing and entrepreneurial programs which make elites responsible for limited social change that won’t disrupt market relations. Conversely, the neorepublican and neoliberal response to this critique is that citizenship is inseparable from market-based participation in society because it is the market’s tendency to untether people from social, political, and economic constraints and to diversify the economy that creates free rational agents capable of participating democratically (Lovett & Pettit, 2009 ). From this perspective, chauvinism, discrimination, and communitarianism are bad for global markets, ergo the promotion of the progressive social values of GC is good for the global economy. The critics of GC are quite right in that it is being articulated and reframed to fit the particular ideological commitments of promarket actors in certain sites (Chapman et al., 2018 ; Pais & Costa, 2017 ). However, paying close empirical attention to how conceptualization works, what should be emphasized is that GC’s heterogeneity, fluidity, and contested meaning ensure that it cannot be dismissed as essentially one thing and serving a single purpose (Biccum, 2020 ). Instead, close empirical attention needs to be paid to who is using it, how, and for what purpose.

The Theory of GC

It is commonplace to want to tell the story of GC as the next step in the genealogy of the cosmopolitan tradition. But the picture is more complex than that, because while both cosmopolitanism and GC have close family ties with liberal political theory, it is a mistake to collapse them because there are articulations of liberalism which reject cosmopolitanism, such as the work of John Rawls. Equally, in GC’s associations with antiquity there are concrete connections also with republican political thought (Pagden, 2000 ). In fact, republicanism has equally enjoyed a revival since the 1990s (Costa, 2009 ; Dagger, 2006 ; Lovett & Pettit, 2009 ) and, when examined in detail, the approach to the market found in elite articulations of GC do bear a closer affinity with neorepublicanism than, as critics maintain, neoliberalism (Biccum, 2020 ). The work of Luis Cabrera argues for maintaining a distinction between cosmopolitanism and GC while understanding their connections (Cabrera, 2008 ). Succinct political theories of GC have emerged (Carter, 2001 ; Dower, 2000 ; Tully, 2014 ), some of which try to counter this tradition and some of which marshal GC as a suitable replacement for aggressive American militarism (Arneil, 2007 ; Hunter, 1992 ), arguing that it will allow the United States to pass an “Augustan Threshold.” However articulated theoretically, GC is intimately tied up with questions of human nature, political subjectivity, and appropriate political arrangements, such as polis, state, republic, global governance, world state or empire, with a characteristic omission of political arrangements deemed less formal or “modern.”

The commonplace narrative that places GC within the history of the repetitive revival of cosmopolitan thought is best expressed by April Carter ( 2001 ) and Derek Heater ( 1996 ), whose histories observe a cycle of periodic revival in which the structural contradictions of imperial formations follow a pattern of critique and externalization. Heater begins with Aristotle’s view of the polis as a form of political organization that is congruent with the nature of man. 1 This is an intellectual gesture that naturalizes the polis, making it an expression of the final and perfect condition of human development, and provides legitimacy for its transplantation elsewhere (similar to Hegel’s view of the state). These ideas were put under sustained pressure from circumstances that bear a remarkable similarity to patterns coded by contemporary scholars as “globalization,” including territorial expansion, extensions of governance, migration, and the privatization of the military. Cosmopolitan ideas, Heater argues, arise out of the failure of the polis to live up to claims that it is the expression of human nature. This led to the exploration of two other ideas: the true nature of human beings should be sought either in solitary individualism, or in the essential oneness of the human race. These were first articulated by figures who were critical of existing political arrangements such as Diogenes, Cicero, and Zeno. According to Heater, the periodic revival of cosmopolitan ideas since ancient times is caused by a sense of external threat, whether it be war or environmental catastrophe. Each articulation differs in emphasis over the role of the state, the role of the individual, the role of global institutions, and the desirability of a world state. Similarly, historian Anthony Pagden offers a genealogy of cosmopolitan thought which sees it as indelibly rooted in imperial structures but finds its culmination in the global republicanism of Immanuel Kant, in which Pagden finds there are also critiques of imperialism (Pagden, 2000 ). Thus, an analytical distinction must be maintained between concrete political projects for the realization of global democracy or a world state, and cosmopolitan political philosophy, although they certainly intersect. So, for example, the early cosmopolitans did not devise plans for constitutions and governance, and early- 20th-century advocates for a world state (such as H. G. Wells) were not philosophers (Heater, 1996 ). The International Relations (IR) scholarship which sees the eventuation of a world state deriving from structural conditions is not necessarily engaging normatively with the concept of GC (Ruggie, 2002 ; Wendt, 2003 ), and some scholarship on GC sees its democratic potential in the fact that it is a set of citizen claims, attitudes, and behaviors in the absence of a world state (Dower, 2000 ; Dower & Williams, 2002 ; Falk, 2002 ).

Understanding GC as the culmination in the genealogy of cosmopolitan thought also conflicts with the cosmopolitan revival in IR, although these scholars repeat the formulation described by Heater: namely, the contradictions of globalization demonstrate the flaws in the Hegelian understanding that the nation state is the perfect reflection of human rationality and the only political arrangement that will enable the full flowering of human development. The turn to cosmopolitanism in IR is also occasioned by the end of the Cold War and the disillusionment with Marx in the context of a recognition of diverse identities and non-class-based modes of social, political, and economic exclusion and the new social movements that sprang up as a redress. The cosmopolitan vision for the extension of democracy through reformed institutions is articulated by Richard Linklater ( 1998 ), Daniele Archibugi ( 1993 ), and David Held ( 1995 ) as a redress for these structural conditions. The sovereign state cannot continue to claim to be the only relevant moral community when the opportunities and incidences of transnational harm rise alongside increasing interdependence (Doyle, 2007 ). Similar to their ancient counterparts, Linklater, Archibugi, and Held offer cosmopolitan democracy as both a critique of the Hegelian theory of the state as the highest expression human rationality and a method of expanding democracy transnationally. Both Archibugi and Linklater offer the possibility of direct citizen participation in global institutions as the mechanism that would make for a robust global democracy. Global or world citizenship is implicated in this project, but these scholars do not offer a political theory of GC as such.

The cosmopolitan revival in political theory does, however, theorize GC as a way of reconfiguring ethical foundations of the individual connection to state and world (Appiah, 2007 ; Nussbaum, 1996 ; Parekh, 2003 ). The cosmopolitanism of these scholars is organized around the premise that, in the context of “complex interdependence,” individuals in advanced economies have ethical obligations to the rest of the human race which can override their obligations to fellow citizens. Contained within many arguments in favor of GC is a latent criticism of the nation state and transnational capital. For Thomas Pogge ( 1992 ) this amounts to recognition of the insertion of the citizens of advanced economies into global value and production chains; for Bhiku Parekh this amounts to recognition of the political and economic debt gained through European colonization, and he calls for a globally oriented national citizenship (Parekh, 2003 ). 2

The central cleavage is the relevance and role of the state. Critics of GC argue that GC’s rootless sense of obligation from nowhere undermines Aristotelian notions of civic virtue, and that the nation state is the only community where active citizenship can be practiced (Carter, 2001 ; Miller, 1999 ; Walzer, 1994 ). Others offer GC as a way of being that does not devalue, erode, or supersede the nation state. Nigel Dower, for example, argued in 2000 that a world state is not needed for GC (Dower, 2000 ). Here he is responding to critics who argued at the time that GC cannot exist, because of a lack of common identity and institutions. Some scholars offer “rooted cosmopolitanism” as an affinity to the global that is grounded in individual biography and location (Kymlicka & Walker, 2012 ). Similarly, Martha Nussbaum sparked a debate among prominent political, social, legal, and literary theorists over the competing merits of national versus cosmopolitan affinity, and offered concentric circles of affinity from the individual to the global because the state as nothing more than a “morally arbitrary boundary” (Nussbaum, 1996 , p. 14). Nussbaum later revised this position to articulate a “globally sensitive patriotism,” arguing that the sentiments that underpin patriotism can be used to rescue the concept from its chauvinistic variants, allowing it then to play a role in creating a “decent world culture” (Nussbaum, 2008 , p. 81). But for most of these scholars the state is the starting point for either advocacy or critique of GC.

There are other scholars in the analytic tradition attaching to GC a notion of cosmopolitan right, meaning the restriction of individual freedom so that it harmonizes with the freedom of everyone else. For Luis Cabrera ( 2008 ) this is an important step toward developing an overarching conception of cosmopolitanism, one that details appropriate courses of action and reform in relation to individuals and institutions in the current global system. The collapsing of GC and cosmopolitanism as synonymous is for Cabrera a mistake. There are clear differences between them, as well as different conceptual inflections within them. Within cosmopolitanism, Cabrera details the institutional cosmopolitanism of Archibugi and Linklater, which is concerned with the creation of a comprehensive network of global governing institutions to achieve just global distributive outcomes; and moral cosmopolitanism, which as we see in Appiah, Pogge, and Parekh is concerned not with institution-building but with assessing the justice of institutions according to how individuals fare in relation to them. Cabrera’s claim is that individual cosmopolitanism should be understood as GC. GC for Cabrera is a moral orientation toward and a claim to membership of the whole of the human community and a theory of citizenship that is fundamentally concerned with appropriate individual action. In other words, Cabrera is offering a theoretical framework for the operationalization of GC which offers guidelines of “right action” for the global human community. “Right action” can be objectively known for Cabrera following the analytical tradition and particularly the liberal thought of John Rawls. On the question of the world state Cabrera equivocates. He argues that GC is the ethical orientation guiding individual action in a global human community and not preparation for a world state, but he nevertheless advocates for a world state because of the biases against cosmopolitan distributive justice inherent in the sovereign state system. For Cabrera GC identifies the very specific duties incumbent on all humankind to promote the creation of an actual global political community up to and including the creation of a world state.

The question of empire is conspicuously absent among these scholars, while other scholars fully implicate Western imperial history in their account of GC. James Tully ( 2014 ) is the only political theorist of GC to pay close attention the role of European empire in constructing, globalizing, and making modular civil citizenship. With a focus on language and meaning as the sites of political contestation, Tully sees GC as articulating a locus of struggle, noting that because of empire, most of the enduring struggles in the history of politics have taken place in and over the language of citizenship and the activities and institutions into which it is woven. GC for Tully is neither fixed nor determinable, as it is for Cabrera; it contains no calculus or universal rule for its application in particular cases. Rather it is a conjunction of “global” and “citizenship” that can be regarded as the linguistic artifact of the innovative tendency of citizens and noncitizens to contest and create something new in the practice of citizenship. Basing his account of “public philosophy” on a philosophy of language drawn from Wittgenstein, Skinner, and Foucault, in which language is constitutive of human social and political relations, Tully regards freedom and democracy as practiced through language. Language is inseparable from cognition, and in practices of meaning-making human beings continually (re)negotiate their circumstances, and in so doing have the capacity to change the language, and in changing the language, change the game. Tully offers a political theory of GC that builds on the open-endedness indicated by Linklater and Falk, and sees in the multitudinous expressions of transnational political activism the possibility of different, more democratic political arrangements. This is consistent with decolonial scholarship in IR, postcolonial scholarship in education, and critical scholarship on sustainability, which argue that the modernistic, dualist language of science is part of the problem in that it hinders the ability of scholars and citizens to conceptualize life differently. To change social reality, they argue, we have to change our language (Shallcross & Robinson, 2006 ), and for many critical scholars GC is part of this conceptual shift.

The Study of GC

Research on the practice of GC can be roughly divided between the normative theoretical and the phenomenological empirical and contains a tension between GC as actually existing and needing to be produced. Scholarship has expanded substantially since the 1990s and moved away from an association with cosmopolitanism toward a direct engagement with GC as a concept and field of study in its own right. Contributions to the field have appeared in Media and Cultural Studies (Khatib, 2003 ; Nash, 2009 ), International Law (Hunter, 1992 ; Torre, 2005 ), Psychology (Reysen & Hackett, 2017 ; Reysen & Katzarska-Miller, 2013 ), and Citizenship Studies (Arneil, 2007 ; Bowden, 2003 ; Soguk, 2014 ), but the bulk of the scholarship appears in International Relations (IR) (residing in roughly the subfields of Globalization, Global Governance, Social Movements, and Global Civil Society) and in educational scholarship (residing in pedagogical scholarship but also emerging interdisciplinary fields where educational scholarship is overlapping with International Political Economy, IR, and International Political Sociology) (Armstrong, 2006 ; Ball, 2012 ; Dale, 2000 ; Desforges, 2004 ). Methodologically, most of the scholarship has been qualitative and interpretive or critical, with a handful of quantitative approaches just emerging in Psychology seeking to measure global citizen attributes, and one study providing a quantitative aggregate account of the appearance of “GC” in textbooks (Buckner & Russell, 2013 ; Katzarska-Miller & Reysen, 2018 ; Reysen & Katzarska-Miller, 2013 ). Debates across much of the scholarship follow an optimistic–pessimistic or normative–critical dichotomy.

Sociological scholarship on globalization going back to the 1990s describes a growing global awareness that can be causally attributed to information communications technologies (ICTs). ICTs play a central role in all accounts of “observable” GC, even if operating in the background as the necessary sufficient conditions for transnational cooperation and mobilization. This sociological approach sees in the massification of communications technology a distribution of symbolic resources that inform how people see themselves and their knowledge of others in time and space. This is in keeping with 20th-century scholarship in the fields of nationalism, communication, and the histories of knowledge which have posited the constitutive nature of communications technology and identity (Anderson, 1983 ; Foucault, 1982 , 2000 ; Lule, 2015 ; Martin, Manns, & Bowe, 2004 ; Norris, 2009 ). For Urry, Pippa Norris, and others, just as national broadcasting can be causally credited with the development of national citizenship, so can ICTs be credited with the rise in global affinities, cosmopolitan worldviews, and self-identification as a global citizen. In addition to transforming the possibilities for transnational interaction, mobilization, and governance and the market across terrestrial space, ICTs enable visibility, the spread of knowledge and shared experiences, the perception of threat, and a sense of the world as a whole. For this approach there is a historical connection between ICTs and democracy dating back to the social upheaval in Europe that went with the introduction of the printing press. When ICTs are global, they enable more political transparency through the identification and exposing of wrongdoing. Harmful backstage behavior can be revealed, put on display, and represented over and over again. This has been done to states and corporations over their environmental and human-rights transgressions and has fuelled the activities of new social movements. Such revelations contribute to the knowledge base of those claiming to be global citizens, and of those being so characterized in the scholarship.

Communications technology is one of the structural factors making it possible to uncouple citizenship from the territorial state. Advances in ICTs have also created the technical capacity to make GC an institutional reality. The volume Debating Transformations of National Citizenship devotes a section to debating the possibilities inherent in blockchain technology to confer a grant of citizenship to all humanity through a universal digital identity. Blockchain technology provides the technological capability, international law provides the global juridical framework (Article 25(1) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), according to which every citizen should have the right to participate in the conduct of public affairs), and the Sustainable Development Goals articulate a political will and policy framework (goal 16.9 aims to provide a legal identity for all, including birth registration by 2030 ). For optimists, blockchain technology would provide universal recognition of personhood; enhance individual freedom by allowing people to create self-sovereign identities with control over their personal data; mitigate against the increased politicization of citizenship; and could have the benefit of protecting human rights and stateless persons, assisting in the fight against human trafficking, and even mitigate the tendency of states to monetize naturalization (De Filippi, 2018 ). In addition, it contains the possibility for emancipatory movements to mobilize across territorial borders. The creation of multiple cloud communities would allow for experimentation with democratic utopias and would enable a direct global democracy by creating the possibility of a one-person-one-vote participation in global governance (Orgad, 2018 ). By extending decision-making power to individuals and communities that are currently excluded, it contains the potential for the realization of cosmopolitan democracy as envisaged by Linklater and Archibugi. For pessimists, this would require a globalization of communications technology that is not environmentally sustainable and would centralize power in the hands of states and corporations.

Moving beyond technological determinism, a common refrain in the study of GC is that it is organically expressed, manifested and spread by the globalizing of civil society and transnational advocacy networks (TANs) (Armstrong, 2006 ; Carter, 2001 ; Desforges, 2004 ; Meutzelfeldt & Smith, 2002 ). Here, the attribute of causality is not necessarily with the individual, but with the variety of political arrangements that have emerged to address transnational issues. According to April Carter, “amnesty as an organisation can be seen as a collective global citizen” (Carter, 2001 , p. 83). While not all the groups that fall within the designation Global Civil Society (GCS) can be associated with GC, it is the groups which are engaged in political lobbying, policy work, volunteering, campaigning, fundraising, and protest on social justice issues to do with poverty, inequality, and human rights that are regarded as sites for the study of GC because they are ostensibly motivated by identification with the whole of humanity, cosmopolitan values, a concern about injustice, a willingness to act collaboratively and cooperatively. Moreover, their activities are undergirded by and contribute to the operationalization of a universal system of human rights. They assist local populations in making claims against state governments and they make claims against global institutions for redress of problems. Participants in these networks are transnationally mobile through associations which facilitate the production of knowledge, the formation of “epistemic communities,” and consensus therefore around the policy response to the transnational issues around which they are organized (Haas, 1989 , 1992 ).

A circular logic is at play here. Activists who care about social justice issues comprise the personnel of groups which create networks for the purposes of making change. These networks in turn are new forms of association wherein participation engenders the sorts of values and attributes which can be assigned to the global citizen (Pallas, 2012 ). This logic of learning through participation is a common refrain across political theory, constructivist IR, social movements, and education scholarship (Finnemore, 1993 ). These developments in transnational collective action underpin the claim that changing patterns of global governance create new consequences for citizenship. Much of the scholarship regards this as a democratic trend because many of the groups which inhabit these networks are (semi)autonomous from states and governance structures; use knowledge gathered from grassroots and professional experience to highlight global issues to shape public opinion in such a way as to put pressure on states and corporations responsible for abuses; or push global public policy around health, education, and development in the direction of a more equitable distribution and access and inclusion. Even when the policy preferences of TANs make it onto the global agenda (such as happened with educational access and inclusion and GC education via the Sustainable Development Goals), these groups can continue to apply pressure by also monitoring the operation of UN agencies or national compliance with particular international agreements: the Global Education Monitoring Reports and a special issue of Global Policy (volume 10, supplement 1, September 2019 ) are good examples of this. TANs are regarded as strengthening international society and linkages between states (mitigating the structural condition of anarchy initially posed by IR). For scholars, these spaces of activity embody GC by promoting a world order based not on state interests but on human rights, and acting as a vehicle for strengthening the legitimacy of global institutions and international law (Jelin, 2010 ; Shallcross & Robinson, 2006 ). The interaction they create between the bottom-up and top-down in an expanded architecture of global governance divided by policy specialism is evidence of Alexander Wendt’s claim that a world state is inevitable (Wendt, 2003 ).

However, civil-society groups and TANs are not the only nonstate actors laying claim to the label “global citizen.” Corporations and their representative organizations (e.g., the World Economic Forum) are also adopting the label, and the literature on Global Corporate Citizenship cites the same set of circumstances regarding the pressure that globalization has put upon state capacity. In the circumstance of a “global regulatory deficit” that has been created by financing conditions that required the shrinkage of the state, corporations have a choice between exploiting that deficit for gain, or exhibiting “enlightened self-interest” by recognizing that they have social responsibilities as well as rights. Corporations act as global citizens, according to this literature, by assuming responsibilities of a state, such as the provision of public-health programs, education, and protection of human rights through working conditions while operating in countries with repressive regimes. Global corporate citizens engage in self-regulation to ensure the peace and stability required for continued realization of profits (Henderson, 2000 ; Schwab, 2008 ; Sherer & Palazzo, 2008 ). Considering that much of the activism of social movements against neoliberal globalization has been directed against corporations and the global institutions promoting their preferred policy agendas, this raises a question in need of further exploration. How can the site of the trouble provide ostensibly the solution? Should observers be relieved by the corporate recognition of social justice issues when economic nationalism is on the rise, or should it be regarded as an instrumental attempt at co-opting?

Here lies a central cleavage animating both the endorsement and the critiques of GC. Does capitalism underwrite democracy through economic growth, or does it erode democracy by facilitating monopolies which put power and wealth in the hands of a few? For many commentators, the expanded networks of global governance are not democratic, because they are inhabited by powerful actors with asymmetric bargaining power and the ability to ensure that whatever compromises are made do not trouble the logic of the existing system (El Bouhali, 2015 ; Caballero, 2019 ). The spaces inhabited by global citizens are not in fact spaces of negotiation open to all, and particularly as they are formalized and professionalized, they create an elite (Pallas, 2012 ) of what are effectively bureaucratic functionaries of global governance. Moreover, these elites are primarily from the Global North and are criticized for pursuing an elite-led advanced economy agenda for the international system. Structural imbalances are often cited between Southern and Northern participants because participation requires resources and this creates a Western bias (Gaventa & Tandon, 2010 ). Rather than seeing these actors as representing and advocating on behalf of voiceless constituents, Pallas ( 2012 ) sees a moral hazard and a lack of accountability in “global citizens” who propose policy solutions for which they may not bear the costs by intervening in problems that do not affect them directly. Participants may mistake as “global connectedness” what is in effect identity-sharing among elites. In addition, it is the institutional structure and the funding models of GCS, which have long been subjects of critique, that limit the ability of these groups to entreat the public to behave as global citizens (Desforges, 2004 ).

Richard Falk’s 1993 essay “The Making of Global Citizenship” describes the global citizen as “a type of global reformer: an individual who intellectually perceives a better way of organizing the political life of the planet” (Falk, 1993 , p. 41). This brings us to the assumption of causality which individualizes the emergence of GC in a quintessentially modern gesture which sees GC born of individuals who think critically and do not accept the organization of political life as they find it, but instead ask foundational questions and engage in utopian visions. Falk describes GC as “thinking, feeling and acting for the sake of the human species” (Falk, 1993 , p. 20). GC is thus an orientation toward the collective which begins in the individual with a specific kind of attitude, aptitude, and knowledge. Something peculiar is happening with the consolidation of GC discourse and scholarship. With its uniform emphasis on activism, the global-citizen discourse, whether it occurs in international organisations, corporations, global civil society, individuals or scholarship, has the effect of normalizing and shifting the normative orientation around political activism. This is a significant development given the context of the proliferation of political activisms since the 1960s and the wide variety of political mobilizations occurring on both the right and left of the spectrum in the 21st century . Moreover, the global-citizen discourse has the effect of legitimating the transnational agendas of certain activists (Pallas, 2012 ), and has resulted in a significant normative shift within global institutions in favor of the issues first brought to attention by antiglobalization activists of the 1980s and 1990s. This could be regarded with considerable skepticism as a form of co-opting, or with some relief as a welcome salve to chauvinisms of all varieties. Under the rubric of “GC,” the notion that globalizing capital might have any causal connection to political instability, environmental and health catastrophes, and growing inequality is seldom entertained, even as GC’s insertion into the Sustainable Development Goals sees the production of global citizens as the solution to global problems through the production of global “change makers.” Either way, there is a marked tension between two areas of scholarship in education and political science, where one sees in transnational advocacy the existence of global citizens, and the other sees in the globalization of education policy a strategy for their production.

The conceptualization of GC informs how it is studied. Optimistic scholarship observes what it considers to be organic expressions of GC in social movements, transnational advocacy networks, global governance, and among elite actors. Pessimistic scholarship observes the promotion of GC by elites and through private and governance institutions as a hegemonic strategy to contain and displace social movements; to institutionalize an epistemic paradigm which forecloses on critical thinking and non-Western, particularly indigenous knowledges; and to create a political subject which is amenable to globalizing capital (Bowden, 2003 ; Chapman, 2018 ). Across all this scholarship there are differing accounts of causality which traverse assumptions around human agency, social structure, technological change, and social engineering (Wendt, 1987 ). Technological determinant accounts attribute change to communications technology, top-down accounts attribute change to institutions and governance, and bottom-up accounts attribute change to individual and group agency. The latter two are complicated by the now very large field of GC Education, which has emerged from a combination of elite-led and social movement approaches to education in the 20th century . What is common to all is a characterization of GC as a change in the political subject. Despite the variety in conceptualization and definition of GC, the active, collective, and public element is consistent throughout. Across all the scholarship and debate there appear to be two central issues which require more systematic engagement. The first is the assumption that all forms of political activism are politically “progressive” (that is, in favor of human rights, political freedom, democracy, and equality); and the second is the assumption that GC is inherently neoliberal and therefore also inherently imperial.

A continuing blind spot in much of this scholarship is the concurrent rise of the right-wing political mobilization in various locations. This issue is debated in a volume in dialogue with Tully’s essay “On Global Citizenship” (Tully, 2014 ), and forms a substantive limitation in Tully’s account. Tully is overly optimistic that all forms of nonviolent contestation of civil citizenship are aimed at democracy, freedom, human rights, peace, and equality. He does not consider that alongside more “progressive” globally networked forms of activism are equally regressive forms of negotiation for more conservative and chauvinistic aims, sometimes enacted through violent means (Comas, Shrivastava, & Martin, 2015 ). Duncan Bell makes this criticism as well as raising the question of subject formation, which Tully leaves unaddressed (Bell, 2014 ). This is a notable absence in a time when the social engineering of GC is an active multilateral project. Part of this multilateral project is also an attempt to recapture youth mobilization away from the mobilizing tactics of various far-right or terrorist groups (Bersaglio et al., 2015 ; OECD, 2018 ; Sukarieh & Tannock, 2018 ). In the production of the “global citizen,” then, is also a contestation over what counts as politics, and Tully and other global citizen optimists fail to account for the potential weaponization of the political orientation and allegiance of young people.

Equally, Tully’s engagement in favor of GC is in tension with critical scholarship which sees in GC the continuance of an imperial project. Tully’s understanding of empire is reduced to Western European empire (as is it for most scholars critical of the Western tradition, including both postcolonial and decolonial). This is both one-sided and ahistorical and fails to consider the world historical development of empires in the plural and the fact that what Europe colonized at its periphery was, in many cases, other empires (Burbank & Cooper, 2010 ). There is a growing body of scholarship in International Relations (IR) which attempts to grapple in various ways, some more successful than others, with the peculiar absence of the history of empire from the discipline (Barkawi, 2010 ; Blanken, 2012 ; Colas, 2010 ; Dillon Savage, 2010 ; Go, 2011 ; Nexon & Wright, 2007 ; Spruyt, 2016 ); a growing body of scholarship which is calling for disciplinary decolonization (Abdi et al., 2015 ; Apffel-Marglin, 2004 ; Go, 2013 ; Gutierrez et al., 2010 ; Hudson, 2016 ; Taylor, 2012 ); and a growing body of historical scholarship which takes a comparative approach both to empires and to their role in constructing the international system (Burbank & Cooper, 2010 ; Darwin, 2007 ; Alcock et. al., 2001 ). The problem with the GC-is-imperial critique is that it has been made without a systematic engagement with the theoretical and methodological problem that empire poses for the social sciences. Equally, scholarship within IR that has begun to broach this question has done so without contending seriously with what postcolonial scholarship has done to further such an endeavor, or with how the reintroduction of empire poses serious problems for the very foundations of the discipline of political science (Biccum, 2018a ; Barkawi, 2010 ; Barkawi & Laffey, 2002 ; Mitchell, 1991 ). The recognition of empire and state co-constitution, which is made legible by the scholars who (in both history and historical IR) have begun to make empire an inescapable foundation of inquiry, necessitates a denaturalization of the state. Once the nation state is properly historically contextualized as embedded in imperial politics, the cosmopolitan debate over whether individual allegiance and identity is owed to state or humanity becomes remarkably hollow.

But equally, the state is as much a conceptual variable as GC, and a common critique of the methodological nationalism of much Western political thought and of the social sciences is that it has contributed to a normalization and naturalization of the state which is not consistent with the historical facts of the international system (Ferguson & Mansbach, 2010 ; Mitchell, 1991 ). Once this foundational problem that empire poses for how the social sciences have traditionally understood the state is properly engaged, scholars who value democracy, human rights, and justice have no choice but to normatively endorse GC, or perhaps, following Vandana Shiva, Earth Democracy (Shiva, 2005 ). In addition, scholars need to be careful about continuing to brandish critiques of GC under the rubric of “neoliberalism” in an age of hegemonic decline (Biccum, 2020 ). If GC is indeed imperial, this claim must be made with a very robust understanding of what is meant by empire, which is among many other things, after all, also a concept (Biccum, 2018a ). Scholarship on GC needs to continue, as it has begun to do, to empirically map its usage, operationalization, and institutionalization, with a particular focus on how concepts do political work. The field, practice, and use of the concept is growing. Future scholarship should be paying close empirical attention to how, by whom, and to what purposes it is being used while engaging robustly with questions of norms, methods, and the politics of knowledge. Scholars across the different fields and different normative, theoretical, and empirical divides need to begin to speak to one another. Most importantly, scholars need to keep as the focal point of their inquiry how the concept of GC itself raises important foundational questions about how we should live.

• Abdi, A. A. , Shultz, L. , Pillay, T. (Eds.). (2015). Decolonising global citizenship education . Rotterdam, Boston, Taipei: Sense Publishers.
• Alcock, S. E. , D’altroy, T. , Morrison, D. , Sinopoli, C.M. (Eds.). (2001). Empires; perspectives from archaeology and history . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Anderson, B. (1983). Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism . London, UK: Verso.
• Andreotti, V. , & Souza, L. M. (Eds.), (2011). Post-colonial perspectives on Global Citizenship Education . New York, NY, Routledge.
• Andreotti, V. (2014). Soft versus critical GC education. In S. McCloskey (Ed.), Development education in policy and practice (pp. 21–31). London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Apffel-Marglin, F. , & Marglin, S. A. (Eds.), (2004). Decolonising Knowledge: From Development to Dialogue. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press.
• Appiah, K. A. (2007). Global Citizenship. Fordham Law Review , 75 (5), 2375–2392.
• Archibugi, D. (1993). The reform of the UN and cosmopolitan democracy: A critical review. Journal of Peace Research , 30 (3), 301–315.
• Armstrong, C. (2006). Global civil society and the question of GC. Voluntas , 17 , 349–357.
• Arneil, B. (2007). Global Citizenship and empire. Citizenship Studies , 11 (3), 301–328.
• Ball, S. J. (2012). Global Education Inc.: New policy networks and the neo-liberal imaginary . New York, NY: Routledge.
• Barkawi, T. , & Laffey, M. (2002). "Retrieving the Imperial: Empire and International Relations." Millenium - Journal of International Studies , 31 (1), 109–127.
• Barkawi, T. (2010). Empire and order in international relations and security studies. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of International Studies . USA: International Studies Association and Oxford University Press.
• Bell, D. (2014). To act otherwise: Agonistic republicanism and GC. In J. Tully (Ed.), On global citizenship: James Tully in dialogue (pp. 181–205). London, UK: Bloomsbury.
• Biccum, A. (2018a). What is an empire? Assessing the postcolonial contribution to the American empire debate. Interventions: Journal of Post-Colonial Studies , 20 (5), 697–716.
• Biccum, A. (2018b). Editorial: Global Citizenship and the politics of conceptualisation. International Journal of Development Education and Global Learning , 10 (2), 119–124.
• Biccum, A. (2020). Global Citizenship and neo-republicanism? Problematising the “neoliberal subjectivities” critique. In P. Eglin , T. Ruiz-Chapman , & D. D. Chapman (Eds.), Going global? Critical studies on GC (pp. 129–152). London, NY: Routledge.
• Bersaglio, B. , Ennis, C. , Kepe, T. (2015). Youth under construction: The United Nations’ representations of youth in the global conversation on the post-2015 development agenda. Canadian Journal of Development Studies , 36 (1), 57–71.
• Blanken, L. J. (2012). Rational empires: Institutional incentives and imperial expansion . Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press.
• Bosio, E. , & Torres, C. A. (2019). Global citizenship education: An educational theory of the common good? A conversation with Carlos Alberto Torres. Policy Futures in Education , 17 (6), 745–760.
• El Bouhali, C. (2015). The OECD neoliberal governance: Policies of international testing and their impact on global education systems. In A. A. Abdi , L. Shultz , & T. Pillay (Eds.), Decolonising global citizenship education (pp. 119–130). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense.
• Bowden, B. (2003). The perils of Global Citizenship. Citizenship Studies , 7 (3), 349–362.
• Buckner, E. , & Russell, S. G. (2013). Portraying the global: Cross-national trends in textbooks’ portrayal of globalization and Global Citizenship. International Studies Quarterly , 57 , 738–750.
• Burbank, J. , & Cooper, F. (2010). Empires in World History: Power and the Politics of Difference . Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.
• Caballero, P. (2019). The SDGs: Changing how development is understood. Global Policy , 10 (1), 138–140.
• Cabrera, L. (2008). Global citizenship as the completion of cosmopolitanism. Journal of International Political Theory , 4 (1), 84–104.
• Carter, A. (2001). The political theory of Global Citizenship . London, UK: Verso.
• Chapman, D. D. , Ruiz-Chapman, T. , & Eglin, P. (2018). Global Citizenship267 as neoliberal propaganda: A political economic and postcolonial critique. Alternate Routes , 29 , 142–166.
• Clark, I. (1999). Globalisation and international relations theory . Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
• Colas, A. (2010). The international political sociology of Empire. Oxford Research Encyclopedia International Studies . USA: International Studies Association and Oxford University Press.
• Comas, J. , Shrivastava, P. , & Martin, E. (2015). Terrorism as formal organization, network, and social movement. Journal of Management Inquiry , 24 (1), 47–60.
• Costa, V. (2009). Neo-republicanism, freedom as non-domination and civizen virtue. Politics, Philosophy and Economics , 8 (4), 401–419.
• Dagger, R. (2006). Neo-republicanism and the civic economy. Politics, Philosophy and Economics , 5 (2), 151–173.
• Dale, R. (2000). "Globalisation and Education: demonstrating a 'common world educational culture' or locating a 'globally structured educational agenda'?" Educational Theory , 50 (4), 427–448.
• Darwin, J. (2007). * After Tamerlane: The global history of empire since 1405 . London: Allen Lane.
• De Filippi, P. (2018). Citizenship in the era of blockchain-based virtual nations. In R. Baubock (Ed.), Debating transformations of national citizenship (pp. 267–278). Cham, Switzerland: Springer.
• Desforges, L. (2004). The formation of Global Citizenship: International non-governmental organisations in Britain. Political Geography , 23 (5), 549–569.
• Dillon Savage, J. (2010). The stability and breakdown of empire: European informal empire in China, the Ottoman Empire and Egypt. European Journal of International Relations , 17 (2), 161–185.
• Dower, N. (2000). The idea of Global Citizenship—A sympathetic assessment. Global Society , 14 (4), 553–567.
• Dower, N. , & Williams, J. (Eds.). (2002). Global Citizenship: A critical introduction . New York, NY: Routledge.
• Doyle, M. (2007). The liberal peace, democratic accountability and the challenge of globalisation. In D. Held & A. McGrew (Eds.), Globalisation theory: Approaches and controversies (pp. 190–206). Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
• Falk, R. (1993). The making of Global Citizenship. In J. Brecher , J. B. Childs , & J. Cutler (Eds.), Global visions: Beyond the new world order (pp. 39–50). Boston, MA: South End Press.
• Falk, R. (2002). An emergent matrix of citizenship: Complex, uneven, fluid. In N. Dower & J. Williams (Eds.), Global Citizenship: A critical reader (pp. 15–29). London, UK: Routledge.
• Fairclough, N. (1989). Language and power . London: Longman.
• Fanghanel, J. , & Cousin, G. (2012). “Worldly” pedagogy: A way of conceptualising teaching towards Global Citizenship. Teaching in Higher Education , 17 (1), 39–50.
• Finnemore, M. (1993). International organisations as teachers of norms: The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation and science policy. International Organisation , 47 (4), 565–597.
• Foucault, M. (1982). The subject and power. Critical Inquiry , 8 (4), 777–795.
• Foucault, M. (2000). The archaeology of knowledge and the discourse on language . New York, NY: Vintage Books.
• The original edition was published in French by Gallimard in 1969. The first English translation appeared in 1972.
• Ferguson, Y. H. , & Mansbach, R. W. (2010). The sociology of the state: The state as conceptual variable. In Oxford research encyclopedia of internatioanl studies . USA: International Studies Association and Oxford University Press.
• Gaventa, J. , & Tandon, R. (Eds.). (2010). Globalising citizens: New dynamics of inclusion and exclusion . Claiming Citizenship. London: Zed Books.
• Gaudelli, W. (2009). Heuristics of Global Citizenship discourses towards curriculum enhancement. Journal of Curriculum Theorising , 25 (1), 68–85.
• Geertz, C. (1973). The interpretation of cultures . New York: Basic Books.
• Go, J. (2011). Patterns of empire: The British and American Empires, 1688 to the present . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Go, J. (2013). Decolonising Bourdieu: Colonial and postcolonial theory in Bourdieu's early work. Sociological Theory , 31 (1), 49–74.
• Gutierrez, R. , Encarnacion, M.B. , Costa, S. (Eds.). (2010). Decolonising European sociology: Transdisciplinary approaches . Farnham, England: Ashgate.
• Haas, P. M. (1989). Do regime matter? Epistemic communities and mediterranean pollution control. International Organisation , 43 (3), 377–403.
• Haas, P. M. (1992). Epistemic communities and international policy coordination. International Organisation , 46 (1), 1–35.
• Hartmeyer, H. (2015). The state of global education in Europe: A GENE report . Dublin, Ireland: European Union.
• Heater, D. (1996). World citizenship and government: Cosmopolitan ideas in the history of Western political thought . Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan Press.
• Held, D. (1995). Democracy and the global order . Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
• Henderson, H. (2000). Transnational corporations and Global Citizenship. American Behavioural Scientist , 43 (8), 1231–1261.
• Hicks, D. (2003). Thirty years of global education: A reminder of key principles and precedents. Educational Review , 55 (3), 265–275.
• Hudson, H. (2016). Decolonising gender and peacebuilding: Feminist frontiers and border thinking in Africa. Peacebuilding , 4 (2), 194–209.
• Hunter, D. B. (1992). Toward Global Citizenship in international environmental law. Willamette Law Review , 28 (3), 547–564.
• Isin, E. F. , & Nyers, P. (2014a). Introduction: Globalising citizenship studies. In E. F. Isin & P. Nyers (Eds.), Routledge handbook of Global Citizenship studies (pp. 1–11). London, UK: Routledge.
• Isin, E. F. , & Nyers, P. (Eds.). (2014b). Routledge handbook of Global Citizenship studies . London, UK: Routledge.
• Jelin, E. (2010). Towards a global environmental citizenship. Citizenship Studies , 4 (1), 47–63.
• Karlberg, M. (2008). Discourse, identity and Global Citizenship. Peace Review: A Journal of Social Justice , 20 (3), 310–320.
• Katzarska-Miller, I. , & Reysen, S. (2018). The psychology of Global Citizenship: A review of theory and research . Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
• Khatib, L. (2003). Communicating Islamic fundamentalism as Global Citizenship. Journal of Communication Inquiry , 27 (4), 389–409.
• Koselleck, R. (2002). The practice of conceptual history: Timing history, spacing concepts . Stanford, California: Standford University Press.
• Kymlicka, W. , & Walker, K. (Eds.). (2012). Rooted cosmopolitanism: Canada and the world . Vancouver, BC: UBC Press.
• Lee, C. (2014). Decolonising Global Citizenship. In E. F. Isin & P. Nyers (Eds.), Routledge handbook of GC studies (pp. 75–85). London, UK: Routledge.
• Linklater, A. (1998). Cosmopolitan citizenship. Citizenship Studies , 2 (1), 23–41.
• Lovett, F. , & Pettit, P. (2009). Neorepublicanism: A normative and institutional research program. The Annual Review of Political Science , 12 , 11–29.
• Lule, J. (2015). Globalisation and media: Global village of Babel . London, UK: Rowman & Littlefield.
• Marshall, T. H. (1949). In T. B. Bottomore (Ed.), Citizenship and social class . Pluto Perspectives. London, UK: Pluto Press.
• Martin, K. , Manns, H. , & Bowe, H. (2004). Communication across cultures: Mutual understanding in a global world . Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
• Meutzelfeldt, M. , & Smith, G. (2002). Civil society and global governance: The possibilities for Global Citizenship. Citizenship Studies , 6 (1), 55–75.
• Miller, D. (1999). Bounded citizenship. In K. Hutchings & R. Dannreuther (Eds.), Cosmopolitan citizenship (pp. 60–82). Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan.
• Mitchell, T. (1991). The limits of the state: Beyond statist approaches and their critics. The American Political Science Review , 85 (1), 77–96.
• Mundy, K. , Green, A. , Lingard, B. , Verger, A. (Eds.). (2016). The handbook of global education policy . West Sussex: Wiley Blackwell.
• Nash, K. (2009). Global citizens as show business: The cultural politics of make poverty history. Media, Culture and Society , 30 (2), 167–181.
• Nexon, D. H. , & Wright, T. (2007). What's at stake in the American Empire debate. American Political Science Review , 101 (2), 253–271.
• Norris, P. (2009). Cosmopolitan communications: Cultural diversity in a globalised world . Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
• Nussbaum, M. (1996). Patriotism and cosmopolitanism. In M. Nussbaum & J. Cohen (Eds.), For love of country (pp. 3–20). Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
• Nussbaum, M. (2008). Toward a globally sensitive patriotism. Daedalus , 137 (3), 78–93.
• OECD . (2018). Preparing our youth for an inclusive and sustainable world: The OECD PISA global competence framework. Paris: OECD Directorate for Education and Skills.
• Orgad, L. (2018). Cloud communities: The dawn of Global Citizenship? In R. Baubock (Ed.), Debating transformations of national citizenship (pp. 251-26). Cham, Switzerland: Springer.
• Oxley, L. , & Morris, P. (2013). GC: A typology for distinguishing its multiple conceptions. British Journal of Education Studies , 61 (3), 301–325.
• Pagden, A. (2000). Stoicism, cosmopolitanism and the legacy of European imperialism. Constellations , 7 (1), 3–22.
• Pallas, C. L. (2012). Identity, individualism and activism beyond the state: Examining the impacts of Global Citienship. Global Society , 26 (2), 169–189.
• Pais, A. , & Costa, M. (2017). An ideology critique of Global Citizenship education. Critical Studies in Education , 61 (1), 1–16.
• Pallas, C. L. (2012). Identity, individualism and activism beyond the state: Examining the impacts of global citizenship. Global Society , 26 (2), 169–189.
• Parekh, B. (2003). Cosmopolitanism and Global Citizenship. Review of International Studies , 29 , 3–17.
• Parmenter, L. (2011). Power and place in the discourse of Global Citizenship education. Globalisation, Societies and Education , 9 (3–4), 367–380.
• Pogge, T. (1992). Cosmopolitanism and sovereignty. Ethics , 103 (1), 48–75.
• Reysen, S. , & Hackett, J. (2017). Activism as a pathway to Global Citizenship. The Social Science Journal , 54 , 132–138.
• Reysen, S. , & Katzarska-Miller, I. (2013). A model of Global Citizenship: Antecedents and outcomes. International Journal of Psychology , 48 (5), 858–870.
• Richardson, D. (1998). Sexuality and citizenship. Sociology , 32 , 83–100.
• Rose, N. (1996). Refiguring the territory of government. Economy and Society , 25 , 227–256.
• Ruggie, J. (2002). Constructing the world polity: Essays on international institutionalisation . London, UK: Routledge.
• Sant, E. , Davies, I. , Pashby, K. , & Shultz, L. (2018). Global Citizenship education: A critical introduction to key concepts and debates . London, UK: Bloomsbury.
• Sartori, G. (Ed.). (1984). Social science concepts: A systematic analysis . Beverly Hills, CA: SAGE.
• Schaffer, F. C. (2016). Elucidating social science concepts: An interpretivist guide . London & New York: Routledge.
• Schattle, H. (2008). Education for Global Citizenship: Illustrations of ideological pluralism and adaptation. Journal of Political Ideologies , 13 (1), 73–94.
• Schattle, H. (2015). Global Citizenship as a national discourse: The evolution of segye shimin in South Korean public discourse. Citizenship Studies , 19 (1), 53–68.
• Schwab, K. (2008). Global corporate citizenship: Working with governments and civil society. Council on Foreign Relations , 87 (1), 107–118.
• Shallcross, T. , & Robinson, J. (Eds.). (2006). Global Citizenship and environmental justice . Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Rodopi.
• Sherer, A. G. , & Palazzo, G. (Eds.). (2008). Handbook of research on global corporate citizenship . Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.
• Shiva, V. (2005). Earth democracy: Justice sustainability and peace . London: Zed Books.
• Shukla, N. (2009). Power, discourse and learning Global Citizenship: A case study of international NGOs and a grassroots movement in the Narmada Valley, India. Education, Citizenship and Social Justice , 4 (2), 133–147.
• Soguk, N. (2014). Global Citizenship in an insurrectional era. In E. F. Isin & P. Nyers (Eds.), Routledge handbook of GC studies (pp. 49–61). London, UK: Routledge.
• Soysal, Y. (1994). Limits of citizenship: Migrants and postnational membership in Europe . Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
• Spruyt, H. (2016). Empires, past and present: The relevance of empire as an analytic concept . N. Parker. New York: Routledge.
• Stevenson, N. (1997). Globalisation, national cultures and cultural citizenship. The Sociological Quarterly , 38 , 41–66.
• Sukarieh, M. , & Tannock, S. (2018). The global securitisation of youth. Third World Quarterly , 39 (5), 854–870.
• Taylor, L. (2012). Decolonising international relations: Perspectives from Latin America. International Studies Review , 14 (3), 386–400.
• Torre, M. la. (2005). Global Citizenship? Political rights under imperial conditions. Ratio Juris , 18 (2), 236–257.
• Tully, J. (2014). On Global Citizenship: James Tully in dialogue . Critical Powers. London, UK: Bloomsbury.
• Turner, B. S. (1990). Outline of a theory of citizenship. Sociology , 24 (2), 189–217.
• Urry, J. (1990). The tourist gaze . London, UK: SAGE.
• Urry, J. (1999). Globalisation and citizenship. Journal of World Systems Research , 5 (2), 311–324.
• van Steenbergen, B. (1994). Towards a global ecological citizenship. In B. van Steenbergen (Ed.), The condition of citizenship (pp. 141–152). London, UK: SAGE.
• Walzer, M. (1994). Thick and thin: Moral arguments at home and abroad . London, UK: University of Notre Dame Press.
• Wendt, A. (1987). The agent-structure problem in international relations theory. International Organisation , 41 (3), 335–370.
• Wendt, A. (2003). Why a world state is inevitable. European Journal of International Relations , 9 (4), 491–542.
• Yuval-Davis, N. (1997, Month). National spaces and collective identities: Border, boundaries, citizenship and gender relations . Inaugural lecture delivered at the University of Greenwich, London, UK.

1. Derek Heater acknowledges that similar themes advocating world community and government can be found in the Indian, Chinese, and Japanese intellectual traditions (Heater, 1996 ).

2. This view has been problematized by scholarship occurring at the same time which examines the ways in which globalization has changed the state through the very same transnational governance structures that contemporary scholarship regards as empirical evidence for the existence of GC. For an account of globalization and the state see Clark ( 1999 ).

Related Articles

• Global Distributive Justice
• Cooperative Learning in International Relations
• Global Democracy
• Globalization and Globality
• Globalization and Human Rights
• Globalization through Feminist Lenses
• The International Political Sociology of Empire

Printed from Oxford Research Encyclopedias, International Studies. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice).

date: 18 May 2024

• Cookie Policy
• Privacy Policy
• Legal Notice
• Accessibility
• [66.249.64.20|185.66.15.189]
• 185.66.15.189

Character limit 500 /500

What is global citizenship?

Global citizenship is about shared values and shared responsibility. Image:  REUTERS/NASA/Tim Peake

.chakra .wef-1c7l3mo{-webkit-transition:all 0.15s ease-out;transition:all 0.15s ease-out;cursor:pointer;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;outline:none;color:inherit;}.chakra .wef-1c7l3mo:hover,.chakra .wef-1c7l3mo[data-hover]{-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;}.chakra .wef-1c7l3mo:focus,.chakra .wef-1c7l3mo[data-focus]{box-shadow:0 0 0 3px rgba(168,203,251,0.5);} April Rinne

.chakra .wef-9dduvl{margin-top:16px;margin-bottom:16px;line-height:1.388;font-size:1.25rem;}@media screen and (min-width:56.5rem){.chakra .wef-9dduvl{font-size:1.125rem;}} Explore and monitor how .chakra .wef-15eoq1r{margin-top:16px;margin-bottom:16px;line-height:1.388;font-size:1.25rem;color:#F7DB5E;}@media screen and (min-width:56.5rem){.chakra .wef-15eoq1r{font-size:1.125rem;}} Human Rights is affecting economies, industries and global issues

.chakra .wef-1nk5u5d{margin-top:16px;margin-bottom:16px;line-height:1.388;color:#2846F8;font-size:1.25rem;}@media screen and (min-width:56.5rem){.chakra .wef-1nk5u5d{font-size:1.125rem;}} Get involved with our crowdsourced digital platform to deliver impact at scale

Stay up to date:, human rights.

First, let’s set the stage: the world is becoming more global and interconnected every day. From multinational corporations to climate change to social and political movements, humanity’s fate is increasingly intertwined.

Moreover, we are in the early stages of an historic shift of identity — increasingly less tied to any particular location — which will have far-reaching implications for business, government and society alike.

Against this backdrop, debates about globalization are taking place at an unprecedented level. And yet, we seem to have almost forgotten about the role of global citizenship. It is imperative that we turn these tides.

There are two kinds of global citizens: individuals, who share a set of values and responsibilities; and corporations, who have focused on globalization and seem to have left global citizenship behind. I am focused on being a role model for individuals, helping corporations become better global citizens, and highlighting the importance and voices of global citizens everywhere.

'The shared human experience'

Global citizenship is about the shared human experience. It acknowledges and celebrates that, wherever we come from and wherever we live, we are here together. Our well-being and success are ultimately interdependent. We have more to learn from one another than to fear about our future.

Global citizenship is also about shared values and shared responsibility. Global citizens understand that local events are significantly shaped and affected by global and remote events, and vice-versa. They champion fundamental human rights above any national law or identity, and social contracts that preserve elements of equality among all people.

Diversity, interdependence, empathy and perspective are essential values of global citizenship. Global citizens harness these values and are uniquely positioned to contribute in multiple contexts — locally, nationally and internationally — without harming one community to benefit another. They foster and promote international understanding.

Global citizens include individuals, corporations, global nomads, “glocals,” young and old, big and small, for-profit and non-profit, public and private, introverts and extroverts, men and women and children and anyone in between. Global citizenship and long-term, visionary leadership go hand-in-hand: Individual leaders who espouse shared values, and corporate citizens whose governance, ethics, business model and investment strategy create — not only extract — value in each and every place they touch.

Global citizenship is not the same as globalization. Globalization — the process by which organizations develop international influence or operate on an international scale — is driven by economics, business and money. It’s about the flow of products, capital, people and information. Global citizenship, on the other hand, is driven by identity and values. Global citizens build bridges, mitigate risk and safeguard humanity. While globalization is under hot debate today, we have never needed global citizens more than now.

Why does global citizenship matter?

Global citizens are not born; they are created. Children do not have an innate understanding of their shared humanity; they learn this over time. The importance of education and enabling global perspectives cannot be understated.

Historically, global citizenship was rooted in a common desire to prevent war. Common reasoning was that the more we knew about each other, the more likely we would ensure peace, progress and prosperity. More recently, the Human Genome Project has shown us — for the first time in human history — that scientifically, we are all one. New technologies also enable us to connect with more people in more ways than ever before, allowing us to discover our similarities and differences, better understand our interdependencies, and expand our worldviews.

Yet many people don’t feel this way or have not had such experiences. Around the world, we see people who lack a sense of belonging: they do not feel a deeper connection to other places, people or cultures. Often they do not feel as though they even belong at home. Moreover, especially in developing countries, people who have been unable to participate in the “digital revolution” have also been left out of these conversations. Connectedness is not universal.

In the corporate realm, all too often in recent decades we have seen companies that have put corporate interests above those of individuals, communities and the environment. We read about unethical behavior, corruption, rent-seeking, egregious labor practices, environmental degradation, and worse. These activities represent the antithesis of what the world needs.

Global citizenship helps bridge these gaps and rectify these realities, and global citizens are its ambassadors. Doing this is not only about mindset; it is about actions, lifestyles and building greater connections over time.

Why now? What’s different about today?

Despite the fact that we’ve been living in an increasingly global world for centuries, debates about globalization today are raging unlike almost ever before. From Brexit to the U.S. presidential election, rising nationalism and refugee crises, we see backlash and misunderstandings across-the-board. Global citizenship has always been important. But it is now urgent to highlight its importance to society, business, and the world at large.

We are in the early stages of an historic shift of identity. Increasingly, we are less tied to any particular location, social structure, or nation-state. This is a massive shift, which we (read: people and organizations everywhere) are broadly not aware of or prepared for. It requires a re-grinding of our frames of reference and lenses on change. It also has a wide range of implications. Here are some of the most important:

Technology: The internet is borderless and globalization has gone digital. Smartphones and other mobile devices give us an unprecedented level of global interconnectedness. New technologies have an incredible democratizing power, for those who can access them. If we couple this interconnectedness with global citizenship values, then the world opens up — and gives voice and opportunity — to far more people.

Leadership: Globalization and global citizenship are not the same. Globalization has brought unprecedented benefits to many, but not all. Successful leaders are global citizens, whether they are CEOs, prime ministers, community leaders or children. Whether and how we build a truly inclusive, sustainable future will depend on our ability to help new generations of leaders to become global.

Business: Global businesses, in particular multi-national corporations (MNCs) are bearing the brunt of today’s globalization debates. And they should. For decades, and even centuries, MNCs have extracted more than they have contributed. They have benefited a few (typically executives and shareholders) at the expense of others (often those without a voice: workers, communities and the environment).

Nonetheless, globalization has added immense value to the global economy (to the tune of 10% of global GDP). More interconnected countries and emerging markets have benefited most from this trend, in terms of economic growth. So it is not that globalization itself is bad, nor that it is going away anytime soon.

This is where global citizens are crucial, because they understand both global and local contexts. For example, while globalization has narrowed inequality among countries, it has exacerbated it within them. Hence the solutions are more about targeted domestic policy changes than closing borders or deregulation. In terms of business, it’s time to revise MNCs’ strategies to ensure they generate global prosperity, engage society and contribute to a greater good.

Politics: Many politicians see globalism as a disease, and nationalism as the cure. But this is a false dichotomy. “Deglobalizing” will not achieve the goals of peace, progress and prosperity. Rather, we must look to global citizenship’s shared values for lasting answers.

Youth, education and workforce mobility: New technologies break down barriers for learning, development and earning income. Today’s youth tend to see the world — and themselves — as more global, borderless and fluid. And one in every seven people in the world today is already an immigrant.

Yet these themes are full of unknowns ahead, from the automation of jobs to the “youth bulge” in many emerging markets. High-skilled workers may be less tied to any particular location or profession, while low-skilled workers may have ever-fewer options. Global citizens who understand the layers of implications will be key to developing responsible solutions.

Environment and climate change: There is probably no other issue that more clearly underscores our interconnectedness than climate change. The earth depends on collective stewardship that transcends any geopolitical border or economy. One of the many essential roles that global citizens play is to protect and enforce global compacts. The health of the planet, and society, hinges on global citizens leading this charge.

Cities and urbanization: We are living in the urban millennium. By 2100, more people will live in cities than exist in the world today. Cities are the engines of global growth. They are full of opportunities as well as challenges. They present a classic case of “glocalism”: the most successful cities are both connected globally and able to address local needs… in other words, in perfect alignment with the values of global citizenship.

Global citizenship is not a one-size-fits-all concept, nor is it a panacea. But it is an extremely powerful tool in our 21st century toolbox for building a more sustainable, resilient and compassionate world. Everyone can play an important part. The world is waiting for you.

Don't miss any update on this topic

Create a free account and access your personalized content collection with our latest publications and analyses.

License and Republishing

World Economic Forum articles may be republished in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License, and in accordance with our Terms of Use.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.

Related topics:

The agenda .chakra .wef-n7bacu{margin-top:16px;margin-bottom:16px;line-height:1.388;font-weight:400;} weekly.

A weekly update of the most important issues driving the global agenda

.chakra .wef-1dtnjt5{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-flex-wrap:wrap;-ms-flex-wrap:wrap;flex-wrap:wrap;} More on Civil Society .chakra .wef-17xejub{-webkit-flex:1;-ms-flex:1;flex:1;justify-self:stretch;-webkit-align-self:stretch;-ms-flex-item-align:stretch;align-self:stretch;} .chakra .wef-nr1rr4{display:-webkit-inline-box;display:-webkit-inline-flex;display:-ms-inline-flexbox;display:inline-flex;white-space:normal;vertical-align:middle;text-transform:uppercase;font-size:0.75rem;border-radius:0.25rem;font-weight:700;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;line-height:1.2;-webkit-letter-spacing:1.25px;-moz-letter-spacing:1.25px;-ms-letter-spacing:1.25px;letter-spacing:1.25px;background:none;padding:0px;color:#B3B3B3;-webkit-box-decoration-break:clone;box-decoration-break:clone;-webkit-box-decoration-break:clone;}@media screen and (min-width:37.5rem){.chakra .wef-nr1rr4{font-size:0.875rem;}}@media screen and (min-width:56.5rem){.chakra .wef-nr1rr4{font-size:1rem;}} See all

Lessons learned from over three decades fighting poverty

Vera R. Cordeiro

May 13, 2024

How to successfully orchestrate collective action

Khushboo Awasthi Kumari, Tasso Azevedo and Danya Pastuszek

May 6, 2024

How The Gambia offers a roadmap for enhancing diaspora engagement

Gibril Faal and Adrian Kitimbo

May 2, 2024

International Workers' Day: 3 ways trade unions are driving social progress

Giannis Moschos

May 1, 2024

Is climate inaction a human rights violation?

John Letzing and Minji Sung

April 9, 2024

A ‘post-human rights’ era is emerging. Here’s what it means for migrants – and how to stop it

Marie McAuliffe

April 8, 2024

Search form

• Editorial Group
• International Editorial Board
• Ethics and Malpractice Statement
• Submission Guidelines
• Publications

The Role of Global Citizens in Today’s World

Development Education and Social Justice

Abstract: There are a lot of things that one can feel positive about in regard to how far we have come ethically as a global society.  However, we are still plagued by the existence of many social issues that pierce the veil of our wellbeing.  Poverty, hunger, inequality and political instability, being but a few.  This requires us to work towards appreciating the role that we can play to improve this reality for ourselves, and our global community.  This article highlights the necessity of conceptualising our global society in communal terms that bind us to our global counterparts, and invokes us into action to address the causes of social injustice, locally and globally.  It makes the case for appealing to the common humanity that we all share in regard to approaching some of the world’s most pressing issues.  The piece also emphasises the importance of the ‘system of self’ in regard to amending the wider, societal systems that may facilitate a lot of the aforementioned social challenges.  Lastly, it addresses the importance of challenging ideologies of illiberalism in the overall attempt to enhance society, particularly in the context of regressive elements that are willing to add the vulnerable to their ranks.

Key words : Global Citizenship; Activism; Social Change; Common Humanity; Equality.

Introduction

‘You’re living at... a time of revolution, a time when there’s got to be a change.  People in power have misused it, and now there has to be a change and a better world has to be built’ (cited in Ambar, 2012: 36).  This is a quote from a speech delivered by human rights activist Malcolm X during an Oxford Union debate in 1964.  Today, I would contend, the urgency and desire in his words still resonate with great precision, but in a way that is distinct to ways of old.  In recent years, the concept of social justice has suddenly crept into popular culture, and in natural tandem with this phenomenon, there has been an increase in concern for issues pertaining to inequality and the mistreatment of humans across the globe.  Testament to this are the mass protests that have occurred in recent years, which have openly repudiated social wrongs and promoted the virtuous assignment of ensuring the wellbeing of humans throughout the world- and the wellbeing of the globe itself.  

This spirit of protest is, of course, not unique to contemporary times.  Lest we forget the great public demonstrations that have spanned the lineage of human history which have produced ground-breaking societal developments.  However, what sets today’s moral climate apart is the widespread, cultural adherence to ideals of fairness and equality; this adherence, is closer to being the norm, than an anomaly.  It is now generally seen as desirable to be committed to - or for better or worse, to look like you are committed to - carrying society forward in the voyage towards unflinching justice.  This cultural reality can greatly be attributed to the incremental, painstaking development of the collective, human conscience throughout history.  As Dr Martin Luther King Jr put it, the ‘arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice’ (Knight, 2021: 15).  I solemnly believe it can also be attributed to the impetus that is found in the activism of many of today’s young people.  This impetus has enabled a significant number of today’s youth, and wider society, to recognise their role as global citizens, and play their part in positively bringing the global village forward, ethically.  

I vividly remember moments in my upbringing as a black immigrant in Ireland where my mother, and many other members within the African community, would provide me with stark warnings of how racism will try to greatly shape how I navigate my life in Ireland, and how I had to tirelessly work to resist it in the pursuit of my goals.  To add to this matter, I was born to a Pan-Africanist mother who was adept with the history of racism and colonialism that had scourged her motherland, and with love and grace - but also a very sceptical eye - cautiously observed her surroundings as an immigrant within Ireland to ensure her son’s experiences were as free from bigotry as they could be.  Upon becoming fully integrated into Irish society, which I know proudly call my own, both my mother and I have observed a change in cultural attitudes towards the issue of racism and bigotry amongst Ireland’s citizens, particularly Irish, young people.  There seems to be a greater sense of intolerance towards racism in the ether, and at best, more people feel the need to actionably confront it.  Needless to say, there is still some way to go, but promising developments have been made up to this point and this certainly provides hope for the future.

I am the Politics Coordinator of Black and Irish; an organisation that aims to build an inclusive, equal Ireland and promote the integration of the Black and Mixed-Race community into wider, Irish society.  Through my role at Black and Irish, and my experiences more broadly as a youth activist, I have had the opportunity to see young people of all backgrounds work to combat racial discrimination in a way that would have been considered unimaginable for my mother and her migrant peers when she first arrived in Ireland.  This speaks to an admirable fervour amongst many young people to visualise themselves as global citizens and to act accordingly.  This fervour, however, is not limited to youth, as there are many other progressive-thinking people, of all ages, who share it in today’s age.  The task for these people is to extrapolate the burning passion they feel for fairness and equality across our communities, and the global society at large.

The nature of global citizenship

Within the nucleus of recognising one’s role as a global citizen, is the realisation of our deep, symbiotic connection with all humans within the global family.  This is an epiphany that sees us viewing the problems of our neighbours, as problems of our own.  The wars ravaging nations, which are cutting life short before it has the chance to blossom, are not only wars within those nations but wars within the human house that we must all attempt to quench.  Poverty mercilessly keeps a significant number of the fruits within the basket of existence from many of our global counterparts, and impedes upon the buoyancy of our own existence.  Racism is a social ailment that strips societal groups of their dignity and blindly downplays the value that they possess.  As the former Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius once stated in regard to this human connection, ‘we are made for cooperation, like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of the upper and lower teeth’ (Aurelius, 2020: 15).  We, as human beings, are truly bound to one another, and the job of the global citizen is to recognise this, find their place in today’s world, and see where they can use their unique abilities to improve it for those who are less fortunate. 

The issues that plague our civilisation such as hunger, disease and political instability, present a bitter-sweet panorama for the archetypal global citizen.  On the one hand, there is a barely tolerable bitterness because of the fact that earnestly confronting the demoralising social challenges which a considerable amount of the world’s population faces is very difficult to process and digest mentally.  ‘Change’ is the mantra of the global citizen, and is uttered in activist corners so frequently that it has in itself become an emblem.  However, acknowledging a bulk of the major issues that the world confronts at once, can lead to exhaustion and deceptively tempt us into dwarfing our capacity to ‘change’, which can result in melancholy and at times, self-defeating nihilism.  Conversely, within this same context, there is also a mouth-watering sweetness.  The sweetness rests in the great opportunity that the world places at our feet to actionably challenge social issues, and contribute to the advancement of our communal surroundings.  There is no golden bullet when it comes to solving these issues.  Within the issues - and their solution - is a complex web of political, economic, anthropological and various other factors.  What is most important, is fully enabling the ethos of our common humanity to shine through when thinking of societal problems and allowing it to act as a bedrock, upon which we play whatever part we can in improving our worldly community. 

The power within the ‘system of self’

Although it is important for us to continually work to progressively impact the social systems around us, it is necessary to note that an unmitigated, singular focus on the wider ‘systems’ can sometimes lead to mental fatigue, and a sense of defeatism.  The young person who may want to live more sustainably might ask, ‘what is the point when corporations continue to seamlessly emit environmentally eroding emissions into the ecosystem?’  The potential vegan who believes in the ethics of preserving the life of animals might question the existence of veganism, as ‘someone, somewhere is going to eat meat anyway’.  That person who might want to cease spending their money at a store which exploits those who compose its products, may wonder what impact their cessation will have, when all of their neighbours purchase from that store, completely unbothered.  Although there is a deep truth embedded in these scenarios, we must never forget the deeper value that rests in the task of reforming the system of self.  

Few, if any, human-made systems can truly outweigh the power of a network containing individuals who have been ‘spiritually reformed’- in other words, people who work to reform themselves, and organise to take social action.  For it is individuals who manufacture the systems, and those same individuals, with the conscience and moral vigour they develop from self-reformation, can amend those systems.  This is proven by the extensive voyage of the ‘moral arc’, that Dr King referred to, throughout history.  It has mercilessly journeyed right through the institution of slavery in many parts of the world, has crushed the wall of legalised discrimination and repression in its stride, and left behind remnants of its progression upon the contemporary ocean, which we all enjoy today such as a better standard of living relative to our historical compatriots, and a relatively freer, and a more fruitful society than any other time in history (Easterlin, 2000).  These developments emerged through toil and struggle, which was led by ‘spiritually reformed’ individuals, who took action to reform the motif of the very systems that initially barred these developments.  Hence, focusing on the more immediate task of improving ourselves incrementally and acting in accordance with the aspirations we have for our local community, and the global community, is the sufficient starting point in embracing our role as global citizens.  It does not mean we forget the systemic challenges that are before us.  Nor does it mean that we neglect whatever role we feel we have to play in addressing those systemic challenges.  But trying to be the change we wish to see in the world is both accessible and powerful, no matter how big or small one feels their contribution is.  

Solidarity and a shared humanity

The key element of being an effective global citizen is appreciating our place, and the place of others, in the interwoven yarn of kinship, that encompasses all people.  It is done by seeing right through the superficial elements that distract us from our shared essence.  This essence transcends the superficial, and resides in each and every one of us.  Charles Darwin, the founding father of the theory of evolution by natural selection, famously stated in his landmark text On the Origin of Species , ‘from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been and are being evolved’ (Darwin, 1909: 429).  Here, Darwin is referring to the simple beginnings of life on earth, and how the process of evolution developed various life forms which branch away from the same starting point.  This wonderful quote allegorically points to the scientific articulation of the all-encompassing link we share with all humans, and life forms, on the planet. 

This axiom, of us all being cut from the same cloth, challenges any attempt to fundamentally distinguish ourselves from those around us, and implicitly calls on us to extend our solidarity to others and do as much as we can to uplift those around us.  Behaviour which alienates, ostracises or isolates groups of people is an undesirable deviation from the truth of our commonality.  The Irish parliamentarian and activist, Daniel O’Connell, who was referred to as ‘The Liberator’ due to his contributions to the cause of Catholic Emancipation, spoke avidly against American slavery.  O’Connell once said about visiting the United States, ‘so long as it is tarnished by slavery, I will never pollute my foot by treading on its shores’ (cited in Geoghegan, 2010: 9).  O’Connell clearly understood that the oppression of any man or woman, was also an indirect manifestation of oppression against him and he continually acted to rectify the presence of oppression within the domestic shores of Ireland, as well as beyond.   This is the philosophy of the global citizen, and the bar that we must constantly attempt to reach in our efforts to fulfil that philosophy.

Education as a means to kick-start global citizenship

The vital prescription that follows the philosophy of global citizenship is the advancement of education.  The absorbing, immediate concerns that every day people regularly face, primarily as a result of the nature of our socio-political structure, can oftentimes distract us from the fact that we are living in a global village that we all have a stake in.  As a result, a lack of knowledge on the bond that we share with our global compatriots, and of the role we can play to better our immediate and global surroundings is created - or maintained - and this can open doors to unhelpful ways of thinking.  Regressive political populism feeds on the lack of awareness its victims have of their connection with those around them.  This is exemplified by the anti-immigrant, racialised rhetoric that is oft laden in the political arena.  It is not surprising that there is a correlation between this type of rhetoric and underprivileged areas where adequate education is not always a guarantee, and where the demands of our socio-political environment uniquely places added hardship upon people. (Mondon, 2017).  

A possible remedy to this issue rests in reimagining how we facilitate education, with regard to our social and civic responsibilities.  Formal education, for example, could offer insights on the common humanity we share with those around us, and the work we can do to impact members of our community in positive ways.  This would enable us to transcend superficial differences among ourselves and lead to social cohesion and progressive social change.  This is especially true in Ireland, particularly in the context of racial discrimination and migration, as Irish history is inundated by the tragic experience of colonial racism and periods of mass migration.  Education based on this historical backdrop could emphatically highlight the rubric of brotherhood that encapsulates those within Ireland, those who aim to find a home in Ireland, and those beyond our shores.  This is a hidden potential within the sphere of policy and education that has not yet been adequately explored, and I hope will be tapped into at some point in the near future.

Racism and white supremacy

There is somewhat of an introspective challenge that arises for the global citizen, which certainly needs addressing.  When striving to better the society within which one resides, it is not unusual for some to see as enemies those who stand in the way of progressive activism.  However, as difficult as it can be, it is important to place those who arise to promote regressive ideals that may not be on the side of social progress within the context of the common humanity that we all share.  Dr Martin Luther King Jr regularly cited the bible to proclaim that ‘we are all one in the eyes of God’ and that the racism promoted by white supremacists was not a blemish of King’s, or black America’s, but a deep spiritual blemish within the white supremacist, as the white supremacist intellectually departs from the oneness that they and their black and minority ethnic brethren belong to (King Jr, 2010).  This departure from the reality of our interconnectedness, creates vulnerability.  The bigot who believes it is a strength to reside in their morally bankrupt ideological framework is actually fundamentally weak.  In fact, they are victims.  Victims of a poisonous wave that carries them from the reality of their own soul to a plastic, precarious place that is not durable enough to hold its own against the tide of reality.  

One of the fundamental differences between those who have been allotted an unfortunate deck of cards by society, and those who promote an ideology that paradoxically denies the humanity of others, whilst trying to validate their own, is that the former are obviously vulnerable and deserve assistance, whilst the latter are also vulnerable, but do not realise that they are vulnerable.  This means, that as far as is practicable, and where it is appropriate, it is important for the global citizen to also lend a hand to those who have been victimised by undesirable ideologies, and help them to kick-start their own spiritual reformation.  This is certainly not possible in all scenarios, and impossible utopianism is destined to be crushed by the toughness of reality.  But there are committed elements of illiberalism within society that would gladly recruit those who are vulnerable, therefore, the extension of the ideal of brotherhood should not fall short at reaching the oblivious victim where possible, as this too inevitably leads to a positive change for the global community.  

To be a global citizen, is to care.  It is to empathise.  It requires an honest acknowledgement of the complex mixture of privileges and disadvantages with which you personally juggle, and that which your neighbour juggles; and calls on you to see how you can work cohesively with your neighbour to offset the existing disadvantages and to establish more indicators of happiness, for yourself and everyone within the global neighbourhood.  It involves an appreciation for the transcendental cloak of our common humanity that encapsulates all human beings.  Partaking in the instrumental voyage of the ‘moral arc’ is never easy, and I certainly cannot lay claim to an indestructible obedience to the ways that I have advocated in this article.  But we as humans have come an incredible distance as it is, so there is no reason, especially considering how far we have come, why we cannot strongly continue our voyage into a better future.

Ambar, S M (2012) ‘Malcolm X at the Oxford Union’, Race & Class , Vol. 53, No. 4, pp.24-38.

Aurelius, M (2020) Meditations: The Philosophy Classic , New York: John Wiley & Sons.

Darwin, C (2021) [1909] The Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection, Phoenmixx Classics Ebooks.

Easterlin, R A (2000) ‘The worldwide standard of living since 1800’, Journal of Economic Perspectives , Vol. 14, No. 1, pp. 7-26.

Geoghegan, P (2010) ‘18th-19th - Century History’, History Ireland , Vol. 18 (Sep/Oct), No. 5.

King Jr, M L (2010) Where do we go from here: Chaos or Community? , Boston, MA: Beacon Press.

Knight, J (2021) ‘The Moral Universe Won’t Budge Unless We Move It’, The Learning Professional , Vol. 42, No. 3, pp. 15-16.

Mondon, A (2017) ‘Limiting democratic horizons to a nationalist reaction: populism, the radical right and the working class’, Javnost-The Public , Vol. 24, No. 4, pp.355-374.

Eric Ehigie is studying Law and Business at NUI Galway.  He is the Political Coordinator at Black and Irish which is an NGO that advocates for the integration of the black and mixed-race Irish community into wider Irish society.  He is a community activist and the host of the ‘Engaging with Eric’ podcast.  

Global Citizenship Curriculum Project - Georgetown University

• Course Module
• Global Dialogues

Lecture Two: Global Citizenship: Contemporary Challenges and Opportunities

Showing the Lecture 2: Challenges and Opportunities for Global Citizenship Video

Readings for Lecture Two: Global Citizenship: Contemporary Challenges and Opportunities

• António Guterres, Address to the General Assembly (2022) 
• Pope Francis, Fratelli Tutti (2020)

View the Course Module Content

Visit the Interactive Map

Consult Readings and Resources

Advertisement

Post-pandemic citizenship: The next phase of global citizenship education

• Published: 04 January 2022
• Volume 53 , pages 203–217, ( 2023 )

Cite this article

• Evan Saperstein 1  

9357 Accesses

5 Citations

121 Altmetric

10 Mentions

Explore all metrics

As globalization has grown, the concept of “global citizenship” has also evolved. The drive to expand citizenship beyond national borders spurred a nascent discipline known as global citizenship education (GCE). This article examines the continuum from globalization, to global citizenship, to a global pandemic (Covid-19)—and how the lessons from this growing age of globalism can serve as a blueprint for a new form of global citizenship following the pandemic, defined as “post-pandemic citizenship”. The first part chronicles the drive toward globalization since the second half of the 20th century. The second part details the defining traits of global citizenship. The third part calls for a new form of global citizenship that should become part of GCE and be included in global-studies-related secondary-school courses and curricula in the wake of Covid-19—a so-called post-pandemic citizenship education (PPCE)—that emphasizes public health, empathy and compassion, self-sacrifice, and cooperative spirit.

Similar content being viewed by others

Egypt’s 2030 Vision : Priority Areas for Egyptian Education for Global Citizenship

A Global Citizenship Perspective through a School Curriculum

“Global citizenship means different things to different people”: Visions and implementation of global citizenship education in Dutch secondary education

Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.

In recent years, the trends toward globalization have expanded the definition of citizenship beyond national borders (Acharya, 2012 ). The concept of “global citizenship” has become the focus of increasing attention in academic circles, spurring a nascent field of study appropriately named global citizenship education (GCE) (Brigham, 2011 ; Fernekes, 2016 ). The scope and scale of the challenge posed by the Covid-19 pandemic have served to highlight the major issues facing the world today and the continued importance of international collaboration and purpose.

Since 2020, the Covid-19 outbreak has brought the world to a standstill. The pandemic has upended daily life and, in so doing, it has revolutionized the way in which we work, learn, and otherwise interact (Fancera & Saperstein, 2021 ). Even more, the pandemic has further exposed deep-rooted inequities in public health, the economy, race relations, and the environment. In his nomination speech for president, Joe Biden ( 2020 ) alluded to these four historic crises, including the “worst pandemic in over 100 years. The worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. The most compelling call for racial justice since the 60’s. And the undeniable realities and accelerating threats of climate change”.

In this article I examine the ongoing continuum from globalization, to global citizenship, to a global pandemic—and how the lessons from this growing age of globalism can serve as a blueprint for a new form of global citizenship following the pandemic, defined as “post-pandemic citizenship”. In the first part, I chronicle the drive toward globalization (political, economic, and cultural) since the second half of the 20th century. In the second part, I detail the defining traits of global citizenship. In the third part, I call for a new form of global citizenship in the wake of Covid-19—a so-called post-pandemic citizenship education (PPCE)—that emphasizes public health, empathy and compassion, self-sacrifice, and cooperative spirit. This new form of citizenship should become part of GCE and be included in global-studies secondary-school related courses and curricula.

The drive toward globalization

Despite some setbacks over the years, since the second half of the 20th century there has been a growing movement toward and recognition of globalization—political, economic, and cultural. Europe is among the more notable examples of this trend. Indeed, in the aftermath of World War II, Europe began the process of transforming from a patchwork of sovereign nation-states to a community of nations (Bickerton, 2012 ). Through several treaties over the decades following World War II, a rising number of European countries entered into enduring political and economic alliances (McCormick, 1999 ; Shore, 2000 ). With the culmination of the European Union (EU), Europe became a more interconnected global community (Follesdal, 2002 ; Maas, 2014 )—and with the ever-looming threat of communist takeover during the ensuing Cold War, European countries hastened to align their foreign and security policies (Feld, 1998 ; Saperstein, 2008 ). And, despite the recent Brexit movement arising out of the United Kingdom (Pettifor, 2017 ), through the EU and a near fifty-year Cold War, European nations created a lasting shared identity and “common citizenship status for citizens of EU member states” (Maas, 2014 , p. 409).

Countries outside of Europe have also increasingly entered into cross-national agreements and unions, such as the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA), the African Union (AU), the Association of Southeast Nations (ASEAN), and the Southern Common Market (Mercado Común del Sur; MERCOSUR) (Shaw et al., 2011 ; Swanson, 2020 ; Telò, 2014 ). While these regional and continental groups do not grant the same breadth of transnational rights and freedoms as provided by the EU, they have served to strengthen political ties and to promote economic integration (Falk, 2002 ; Maas, 2014 ). Yet recent efforts to expand upon these agreements and unions have been modest at best (Natalegawa, 2018 ; Swanson, 2020 ). And, while some have welcomed global governance and “cosmopolitan democracy” (Archibugi, 2008 ; Caney, 2005 ; Held, 1995 ), others have lamented the rise of international institutions (Axtmann, 2002 ; Hawthorn, 2003 ; Zolo, 1997 ).

Over the past few decades, economic globalization has also brought individuals, neighborhoods, local communities, and nations together (Langran, 2016 ; Zhao, 2014 ). Companies and corporations have increasingly spread to other parts of the world (Kordos & Vojtovic, 2016 ). Consequently, citizens have felt less isolated and more part of a global community (Csaba, 2003 ; Stiglitz, 2002 ), leading to “important implications for the nature and prospects of global citizenship” (Newlands, 2002 , p. 213).

Despite this, economic globalization can have negative consequences for global citizens (Buckman, 2004 ; Cavanagh et al., 2002 ; Langran, 2016 ), including higher unemployment for failing companies and deterioration of the “natural environment and the health, safety, working conditions and wages of employees” (Newlands, 2002 , p. 217). Economic globalization can also favor the interests of corporations over those of everyday citizens (Cruikshank, 1998 ), as a growing disparity between the rich and poor, and worldwide recessions, serve as further evidence that global financial institutions have failed to cure the inequities of capitalism (Cruikshank, 1998 ; Tuca, 2014 ).

Cultural globalization has also kept pace with the political and economic trends of globalization following World War II. Take the United States, for example, which over decades has projected and exported popular culture across the globe, including cinema, music, art, commercial products, food, sports, clothing, and the internet (Crane, 2014 ; Crothers, 2007 ; Saperstein, 2010 ; Van Elteren, 2011 ). During this time period, the world has also witnessed an unprecedented telecommunications or digital revolution (e.g., computers, cellular phones, and social media) (Kolodko, 2011 ) that redefined global borders (Ahmad, 2013 ; Crothers, 2007 ). While some see cultural globalization as a positive force that promotes progress, understanding, and diversity among global citizens (Rothkopf, 1997 ; Wang, 2007 ), others have considered it a threat to their local identity or culture, and express skepticism that a global village, culture, or society exists in reality (Guibernau, 2007 ; Guillén, 2001 ; Hirst & Thompson, 1996 ). It is through these rising political, economic, and cultural connections (and tensions) that the concept of global citizenship has emerged.

The emergence of global citizenship and global citizenship education

The concept of global citizenship is subject to ongoing interpretations and meaning and has been defined by a growing number of international bodies and institutions (Oxfam, 2006 ; UNESCO, 2015 ; UNICEF, 2013 ). UNESCO describes global citizenship broadly as “belonging to a broader community and common humanity”, and “political, economic, social and cultural interdependency and interconnectedness between the local, the national and the global” (UNESCO, 2015 , p. 14). UNICEF assigns further traits to a global citizen, including:

Appreciation for diversity and global interconnectedness;

Desire to confront societal inequities;

Willingness to act meaningfully (UNICEF, 2013 ).

Oxfam includes similar characteristics when defining global citizenship, adding:

Concern for environmental problems;

Commitment to sustainability;

Ability to critically think and reason;

Appreciation and empathy for others to promote conflict resolution;

Recognition of self-worth and identity (Oxfam, 2006 ).

Scholars have echoed similar definitions of global citizenship (Carter, 2001 ; Diaz et al., 1999 ; Noddings, 2005 ; Reysen & Katzarska-Miller, 2013 ). Diaz et al., ( 1999 , p. 191) define a global citizen as one “who is characterized by an attitude of openness toward all others, irrespective of their gender, race, ethnicity, age, religion, and language”. Noddings ( 2005 ) highlights the need for economic and social justice, as well as the need to protect the earth, embrace social and cultural diversity, and educate for peace. Carter ( 2001 , p. 98) agrees that global citizens are dedicated to “social justice, diversity, sustainable economic development respecting the environment, and to a peaceful world”. Reysen and Katzarska-Miller ( 2013 ) sum up global citizenship through the following six traits, detailed further below:

Global awareness;

Cultural diversity;

Social justice;

Sustainability;

Responsibility to act.

Global awareness

Global awareness, the first trait of global citizenship, is about understanding the interrelated nature of the world (Dower, 2002 ; Pike, 2008 ), including “globalization and the resulting issues and problems that affect everyone’s lives” (Gibson et al., 2008 , p. 15). Werner and Case ( 1997 ) have defined global awareness to include knowledge of cultural principles and traditions, appreciation for the interconnected nature of global systems, understanding of global concerns, and recognition of the global past and future. Global citizenship requires global awareness to address pressing economic, social, environmental, cultural, and ethical issues (Noddings, 2005 ).

In business practice, employers have increasingly stressed the importance of understanding different cultures and developing 21st century skills (Bruett, 2006 ; Mendoza, 2007 ) by, for example, studying abroad (Trooboff et al., 2008 ). The Partnership for 21st Century Learning ( 2009 ) emphasizes in particular that global awareness promotes collaboration in the workplace and broader community. Given the demands of a rapidly changing world, global awareness has become increasingly necessary for leaders and employees of various industries (Bowerman & Van Wart, 2014 ; Milman, 2015 ). Exhibiting global awareness can create more career opportunities, improve decision making, and enhance entrepreneurial and leadership skills (Goldsmith, 2012 ).

In education, colleges and universities also have increasingly emphasized studying abroad as a way to learn another language and become more culturally aware (DeLoach et al., 2015 ; Gieser, 2015 ; Haring-Smith, 2011 ; Kurt et al., 2013 ; Wang et al., 2014 ). As Clarke ( 2004 , p. 68) argues, “foreign languages are essential for a world of intercultural convergence” and a necessary part of a curriculum. For pre-service teachers, study abroad experiences have helped foster global citizenship and develop global awareness or cultural competency in languages, values, and customs (Byker & Putman, 2019 ; Klein & Wikan, 2019 ; Kyei-Blankson & Nur-Awaleh, 2018 ). While pre-service teachers tend to have more study abroad opportunities, in-service teachers also benefit from programs that emphasize cultural immersion, teaching, language acquisition, reflection, and collaboration (He et al., 2017 ). In-service teachers may even further their intercultural knowledge and global awareness through short-term (two to eight weeks) study abroad programs (He et al., 2017 ; Reimers, 2020 ).

At the same time, adding global citizenship to textbooks (Lee, 2020 ) or resource books used in primary and secondary schools can help to nurture “globally aware, globally minded, and globally proficient” students (Reimers, 2020 , p. 1). For instance, the three-step model known as Global Citizenship 1-2-3 helps students to learn, think, and act responsibly by developing global awareness through experiential learning (Putman & Byker, 2020 ). Sisk ( 2010 ) and Roeper ( 2008 ) focus specifically on gifted children or students “who exhibit high ability across one or more academic subject areas” (Bates & Munday, 2005 , p. 4). Their studies have shown that gifted students, with the support of loving and caring adults, can develop the global awareness of a global citizen—that is, “empathy and sensitivity to justice, honesty, fairness, and a sense of responsibility for making a difference” (Sisk, 2010 , p. 10), and “aware[ness] of the world around them” (Roeper, 2008 , p. 9). In sum, incorporating global awareness into curricula has helped students to understand and address important 21st-century challenges (Burnouf, 2004 ).

Caring for the global community and humanity is a responsibility shared by globally conscious citizens (Dill, 2013 ). According to UNESCO ( 2015 , p. 29), one of the key learner attributes for a global citizen is “to develop motivation and willingness to care for the common good”. For instance, in the medical field, nurses care for a global population that transcends borders and cultural barriers (Cesario, 2017 ). Indeed, to be both a global citizen and a cosmopolitan nurse, “requires participation in, and valuing of, the common good of society as a whole” (Petit dit Dariel, 2009 , p. 569).

“Caring” is also an important ethos for teachers entering the profession (Hawks & Pillay, 2017 ). Over the past few decades, countries like Sweden have started to incorporate the principle of “care” into their pedagogy for students at an early age (Johansson, 2009 ). Ruby ( 2014 , p. 54) concludes that “as we debate the ways to educate young people for global roles . . . a duty of all is . . . to care for others”.

Cultural diversity

Global citizenship also emphasizes “shared membership and shared global values” (Mullens & Cuper, 2012 , p. 44), and “embracing cultural diversity” (Reysen & Katzarska-Miller, 2013 , p. 860). Ibrahim ( 2004 ) specifically connects global citizenship with the concept of “cultural diversity”, calling for organizations to promote multiculturalism both locally and globally. Additionally, UNESCO ( 2002 , p. 62) noted in its Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity that cultural diversity is “the common heritage of humanity” and “is embodied in the uniqueness and plurality of the identities of the groups and societies making up humankind”.

In Spain, for instance, cultural diversity is part of a broader educational curriculum (Engel, 2014 ). Exploring Spain’s 2006 Education for Citizenship and Human Rights curriculum (replaced in 2013) along with corresponding textbooks, Engel ( 2014 , p. 251) explains that “cultural diversity is conveyed largely through non-threatening ideas of global connections such as in relation to food, festivals, and flags”. The 2016 Annual Report of National Commissions for UNESCO also emphasizes cultural diversity and interdependence as part of a global-citizenship-related curriculum (UNESCO, 2016 ). Banks ( 2003 , p. 19) maintains the importance of citizens in diverse democratic societies being literate, thoughtful, ethical, and engaged “citizens of their nation and the world”.

Others, however, have expressed concern that shared global values may discourage cultural diversity (Arneil, 2007 ; Cheng, 2012 ). Cheng ( 2012 , p. 157) speaks to the concerns of undermining the character of local cultures and instead calls for “a global mosaic of multiple, pluralistic knowledge societies, each rooted in its own unique cultural identity”. Arneil ( 2007 , p. 315) also takes issue with “anchoring citizenship at the global level in a set of shared values”, warning of “the potential to do violence to cultural diversity at best or engage in western cultural imperialism at worst”. As Zayani ( 2011 , p. 49) concludes, preserving cultural diversity “is a complex endeavor”.

Social justice

Social justice broadly refers to a process whereby every individual or group works to challenge oppression and receive the same opportunity, (Bell, 2007 ; Bhugra, 2016 ; Garcia & Van Soest, 2006 ; Greene, 1998 ) inclusive of not only cultural but also racial, religious, ethnic, and language diversity (Banks, 2004 ). Scholars have expressly tied the principle of “social justice” to a globalizing world (Brock, 2009 ; Fraser, 2009 ). Brock ( 2009 ), for instance, calls for a cosmopolitan model of global justice that addresses various international challenges while preserving the national identity of citizens. To achieve social justice in a globalizing world, Fraser ( 2009 ) speaks to redistribution (socioeconomic opportunity), recognition (social identity or standing), and representation (political affairs).

Moreover, social justice education and pedagogy have provided teachers with growing opportunities to raise social awareness in the classroom (Adams, 2007 ; Hytten, 2015 ). Adams ( 2007 , p. 30) notes that educators can foster “connections between awareness and action by helping participants recognize various spheres of influence in their daily lives”. Howe and Xu ( 2013 ) also stress social action, calling for teachers to play a significant role in fostering both social justice and global citizenship. With the assistance and guidance of teachers, students can learn to “share the world and live together in harmony and peace” (Howe & Xu, 2013 , p. 41).

Sustainability

Global citizenship also requires sustainability—environmental, economic, and social. Environmentally speaking, scholars have recognized the responsibility citizens share in affecting our supply of natural resources and materials (Dobson, 2011 ; Heater, 2004 ; Marzall, 2005 ). Heater ( 2004 , p. 12) views it as “a moral responsibility”; Marzall ( 2005 ) advocates for environmental laws and ethics; and Dobson ( 2011 , p. 10) stresses “fairness of the distribution of environmental goods”. To address climate change and other critical environmental challenges, educational institutions have accordingly recognized the importance of sustainability research (Brundiers & Wiek, 2011 ; Rowe, 2007 ).

Economically speaking, to build a more sustainable and just society, Penner and Sanderse ( 2017 ) call for the inclusion of economic citizenship education (ECE) in school curricula at the local, national, and global level. Ensuring long-term economic sustainability is also critical at the organizational level, as companies seek to adopt responsible management strategies and practices (Laasch & Conaway, 2015 ). And, socially speaking, Barbier ( 1987 ) broadly defines sustainability as adhering to values, customs, and characteristics. Polèse and Stren ( 2000 , pp. 15–16) define it as “compatible cohabitation of culturally and socially diverse groups . . . encouraging social integration”. For example, in a business setting, social sustainability refers to a “corporation internally creat[ing] a supportive and developmental environment for staff” (Benn & Bolton, 2011 , p. 64). Tying these concepts together, global citizens have an environmental, economic, and social responsibility to protect and safeguard the quality of life and rights of others through community initiatives (Leslie, 2009 ).

Responsibility to act

The responsibility to act requires a global citizen who “knows how the world works, is outraged by injustice and who is both willing and enabled to take action to meet this global challenge” (Oxfam, 1997 , p. 1). Responsibility also “involves being proactive, and taking the initiative . . . rather than waiting for others to take the first steps” (Schattle, 2008 , p. 44). Global citizens feel a duty to initiate change, inspiring others to join the cause on their own volition (Schattle, 2008 ). One of the more notable, wide-reaching examples of this commitment to act is the Global Poverty Project cofounded by Hugh Evans and Simon Moss in 2008 (Bryan, 2016 ; McKinley, 2012 ). Among the global citizenship initiatives of this project is the Global Citizen Festival, which brings world leaders, celebrities, and activists together to raise awareness and money for global causes (Bryan, 2016 ).

There are other important, albeit less publicized, examples of action initiatives. For example, William Gaudelli ( 2016 ) designed and cofounded the Global Competence Certificate (GCC) program at Columbia University’s Teachers College (Levine, 2014 ). Partnering with World Savvy and the Asia Society, this program helps teachers become more proficient in global issues by taking online courses and traveling abroad to Bangladesh, Tanzania, Colombia, or Uganda (Levine, 2014 ). Another initiative, the Belize Education Project, encourages students and teachers in the United States and Belize to take action and create lasting partnerships (Fry et al., 2012 ). Moreover, The Global Citizens’ Initiative (TGCI), founded by Ron Israel ( 2012 ), strives to further the goals of global citizenship through advocacy, citizen engagement, and education.

To initiate this call to action and educate for global citizenship, Gaudelli ( 2015 ) proposes three recommendations: adopting curricular reforms; encouraging teachers and students to embrace exchange programs and online discussion forums; and calling for citizens to create gardens and grow food in order for students to better understand the ecosystem. Through dialogue and collaboration, teachers can effect change in the classroom and prepare citizens to meet some of the pressing global challenges (Gaudelli, 2016 ). As Gunzelmann ( 2014 , p. 173) concludes, “We all must come to terms and step up to take responsibility, for each and every one of us plays an important part in the outcome of our global world”.

• Post-pandemic citizenship

The Covid-19 pandemic is far from over. But it is clear from the past year that the pandemic has revealed the depth of many challenges that global citizens have sought for years to address. As months turn to years, and as the world tries to rebuild in the aftermath of the pandemic, it is imperative that a new sense of global citizenship guide international efforts regarding public health, economic and social justice, the environment, and much more. Accordingly, in light of the Covid-19 pandemic and the ensuing results, the concept of global citizenship should expand to include a new form of such citizenship—a post-pandemic citizenship—to rebuild a better world in the wake of a once-in-a-century pandemic. Indeed, to repair a post-pandemic world, post-pandemic citizens should dedicate themselves to promoting public health, exhibiting empathy and compassion, committing to self-sacrifice, and embracing a cooperative spirit locally, nationally, and globally.

First, as it relates to public health, to further post-pandemic citizenship, governments across the world should continue collaborating and investing more in research to prevent future pandemics. This begins with a sustained worldwide campaign to develop and distribute safe and effective Covid-19 vaccines (McCausland, 2020 ). In particular, high-income countries must work together to disseminate and administer more vaccine doses to middle-income and low-income countries. One such initiative, the Covid-19 Vaccine Global Access (COVAX) program, has regrettably fallen short of its initial delivery target for several reasons, including vaccine nationalism (nations putting their own vaccine supply needs and interests above everyone else) (Eccleston-Turner & Upton, 2021 ; Leggae & Kim, 2021 ). With increased global cooperation, COVAX and similar initiatives should strive to ensure more vaccine equity between wealthy and poor nations. As Katz et al. ( 2021 , p. 1283) point out, “such cooperation is not only a matter of social justice, it is also a sound pragmatic response to ending a pandemic in which a virus and its variants easily cross borders”. At the same time, global citizens in the medical community should build on vaccine technology (i.e., using mRNA to stimulate an immune response) to address other current health issues.

Second, given the tragic toll on human life resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic, a post-pandemic citizen should demonstrate the level of empathy and compassion needed in a post-pandemic world. Empathy includes listening, committing acts of service, and being attentive to the plight of others (Singh & Singh, 2020 ). Citizens must demonstrate not only empathy but also compassion for others and oneself (Galea, 2020 ; Slavich et al., 2021 ). Exhibiting compassion could include assisting members in the community (e.g., providing emotional, social, financial, or medical support), especially the vulnerable population. Self-compassion refers to valuing one’s own well-being (Slavich et al., 2021 ).

Third, a post-pandemic citizen should commit to self-sacrifice to protect the common good of society over individual self-interests. Hollings ( 2020 , p. 87) explains that it “requires a caring citizen, one who cares about the potential for others to get sick”. While the Covid-19 pandemic has brought out the very best in many citizens, it also has exposed an unprecedented level of selfishness and ignorance. Too many consistently defied safety protocols established by infectious disease specialists and public health experts. Take mask-wearing as an example. In certain countries, not wearing a mask has become a political statement even though the science is settled on its efficacy (He & Laurent, 2020 ). Not practicing social distancing (staying two meters [six feet] apart) also has turned into a political act even when the data proves that it slows the spread of infection (Ansell et al., 2021 ; Zimmerman & Benjamin, 2021 ). As Slavich et al. ( 2021 , p. 5) explain, “reframing physical isolation as a necessary act of solidarity and togetherness may help promote perceptions of social integration and belonging in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic”. This pandemic has served as a painful reminder of putting the well-being of others ahead of our own self-interest and indulgences. As such, government leaders, public health officials, and everyday citizens have a responsibility to promote the collective good in the future, even if it is at the so-called expense of individual liberty.

Fourth, a post-pandemic citizen should embrace a cooperative spirit locally, nationally, and globally—and there have been a number of examples of such cooperation since the pandemic. At the local level, citizens benefit from uniting behind a common cause and purpose. Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, many local schools, businesses, and agencies around the world—in the name of public health and safety—were asked to comply with guidelines to slow the spread of the virus (UN, 2020 ). At the national level, many governments have encouraged cooperation among public- and private-sector institutions (OECD, 2020 )—whether they be research institutes, universities, businesses, or nonprofit organizations. These public-private partnerships have collectively shared resources, risks, and rewards to accelerate the production of therapeutics and vaccines (Deloitte, 2020 ). At the global level, various institutions developed an international strategy to contain and defeat the pandemic (UN, 2020 ). This included distributing medical equipment, treatments, and vaccines, while strengthening existing multilateral institutions to prevent similar crises in the future (UN, 2020 ).

• Post-pandemic citizenship education

Global citizenship “focuses on preparation for civic engagement in increasingly diverse and global contexts” (Whitehead, 2015 , p. 8). As global citizenship has emerged, so too has GCE in secondary school curricula across various countries (Bickmore, 2014 ; Brown et al., 2009 ; Chong, 2015 ; Davies et al., 2005 ; Evans et al., 2009 ; Motani, 2007 ; Myers, 2020 ). GCE is perhaps best defined as an instructional field that seeks to hone students’ critical thinking skills while teaching them to be agents of change in society (Bickmore, 2009 ; Peterson & Warwick, 2015 ; UNESCO, 2015 ). GCE also seeks to strengthen cross-cultural awareness through the study of contemporary international issues and provide students with the requisite knowledge, skills, and values to actively participate in a global society (Gallavan, 2008 ; Guo, 2014 ; Maguth, 2012 ; Myers, 2006 ).

In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, secondary schools should reexamine the scope and sequence of knowledge, skills, and values within GCE curricula to address the lessons of the pandemic. As such, this article proposes that secondary schools begin to offer a GCE-type course or content that includes, as a minimum, the following five PPCE-related units.

The first unit should introduce and define “post-pandemic citizenship”. Students should discuss the key traits of a post-pandemic citizen. Students also should write an essay on what it means to be a post-pandemic citizen.

The second unit should examine the public health issues that arise during a pandemic. Students should study how different countries prepared and responded to Covid-19 and other pandemics throughout history. Students should also discuss how to create effective prevention and treatment programs along with vaccines. Students should then develop an action plan to confront a future pandemic.

The third unit should address the importance of instilling empathy and compassion in citizens. Students should explore ways to understand and identify with citizens facing other global health challenges, including poverty, world hunger, child mortality, and malnutrition. Through inquiry-based learning, students should conduct scholarly research and prescribe solutions to these problems.

The fourth unit should explore the concept of self-sacrifice. Students should consider scenarios where citizens choose collective responsibility over their own self-interest. Through simulations and social media campaigns, students should discuss how to sacrifice for the collective good in the areas of health, economics, social justice, and the environment.

The fifth unit should emphasize the importance of embracing a cooperative spirit. Students should examine current local, national, and global initiatives as well as the civic duties of a post-pandemic citizen. Through project-based and experiential learning, students should research a global challenge and develop an action plan for a post-pandemic world.

Since the second half of the 20th century, the concept of global citizenship has grown out of the rising tides of political, economic, and cultural globalization. These citizens are defined by several key traits, including global awareness, caring, embracing cultural diversity, advocating for social justice, promoting sustainability, and the responsibility to act (Reysen & Katzarska-Miller, 2013 ). Consequently, GCE has sought to promote these concepts and develop students’ analytical and critical thinking skills, while drawing connections between local and global issues.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, educational institutions at the secondary level should begin to emphasize a new form of global citizenship, post-pandemic citizenship, in global-studies-related courses and curricula (PPCE). By focusing on public health, empathy and compassion, self-sacrifice, and a cooperative spirit, the next generation of global citizenry can begin the process of navigating a post-pandemic world.

Acharya, A. (Ed.) (2012). Citizenship in a globalizing world . Pearson Education.

Adams, M. (2007). Pedagogical frameworks for social justice education. In M. Adams, L. A. Bell, & P. Griffin (Eds.), Teaching for diversity and social justice (2nd ed., pp. 15–33). Routledge.

Ahmad, A. (2013). New age globalization: Meaning and metaphors . Palgrave Macmillan.

Ansell, B., Cansunar, A., & Elkjaer, M. A. (2021). Social distancing, politics and wealth. West European Politics, 44 (5–6), 1283–1313.

Google Scholar  

Archibugi, D. (2008). The global commonwealth of citizens: Toward cosmopolitan democracy . Princeton University Press.

Arneil, B. (2007). Global citizenship and empire. Citizenship Studies, 11 (3), 301–328.

Axtmann, R. (2002). What’s wrong with cosmopolitan democracy? In N. Dower & J. Williams (Eds.), Global citizenship: A critical introduction (pp. 101–113). Routledge.

Banks, J. A. (2003). Teaching literacy for social justice and global citizenship. Language Arts, 81 (1), 18–19.

Banks, J. A. (2004). Teaching for social justice, diversity, and citizenship in a global world. The Educational Forum, 68 (4), 296–305.

Barbier, E. B. (1987). The concept of sustainable economic development. Environmental Conservation, 14 (2), 101–110.

Bates, J., & Munday, S. (2005). Able, gifted and talented . Continuum.

Bell, L. A. (2007). Theoretical foundations for social justice education. In M. Adams, L. A. Bell, & P. Griffin (Eds.), Teaching for diversity and social justice (pp. 1–14). Routledge.

Benn, S., & Bolton, D. (2011). Key concepts in corporate social responsibility . Sage.

Bhugra, D. (2016). Social discrimination and social justice. International Review of Psychiatry, 28 (4), 336–341.

Bickerton, C. J. (2012). European integration: From nation-states to member states . Oxford University Press.

Bickmore, K. (2009). Global education to build peace. In T. Kirkwood-Tucker (Ed.), Visions in global education: The globalization of curriculum and pedagogy in teacher education and schools—Perspectives from Canada, Russia, and the United States (pp. 270–285). Peter Lang.

Bickmore, K. (2014). Citizenship education in Canada: “Democratic” engagement with differences, conflicts and equity issues? Citizenship Teaching & Learning, 9 (3), 257–278.

Biden, J. (2020). Joe Biden’s DNC Speech [Transcript]. https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/20/politics/biden-dnc-speech-transcript/index.html

Bowerman, K. D., & Van Wart, M. (2014). The business of leadership: An introduction . Routledge.

Brigham, M. (2011). Creating a global citizen and assessing outcomes. Journal of Global Citizenship & Equity Education, 1 (1), 15–43.

Brock, G. (2009). Global justice: A cosmopolitan account . Oxford University Press.

Brown, E. J., Morgan, W. J., & McGrath, S. (2009). Education, citizenship and new public diplomacy in the UK: What is their relationship? Citizenship, Social and Economics Education, 8 (2), 73–83.

Bruett, K. (2006). Why American business demands twenty-first century skills: An industry perspective. New Directions for Youth Development, 110, 25–30.

Brundiers, K., & Wiek, A. (2011). Educating students in real-world sustainability research: Vision and implementation. Innovative Higher Education, 36 (2), 107–124.

Bryan, A. (2016). Global citizenship as public pedagogy: Emotional tourism, feel-good humanitarianism, and the personalization of development. In I. Langran & T. Birk (Eds.), Globalization and global citizenship: Interdisciplinary approaches (pp. 115–128). Routledge.

Buckman, G. (2004). Globalization: Tame it or scrap it? Zed Books.

Burnouf, L. (2004). Global awareness and perspectives in global education. Canadian Social Studies, 38 (3), 1–12.

Byker, E. J., & Putman, S. M. (2019). Catalyzing cultural and global competencies: Engaging preservice teachers in study abroad to expand the agency of citizenship. Journal of Studies in International Education, 23 (1), 84–105.

Caney, S. (2005). Justice beyond borders: A global political theory . Oxford University Press.

Carter, A. (2001). The political theory of global citizenship . Routledge.

Cavanagh, J., & Mander, J. (Eds.) (2002). Alternatives to economic globalization: A better world is possible . Berrett-Koehler.

Cesario, S. K. (2017). What does it mean to be a global citizen? Nursing for Women’s Health, 21 (1), 59–63.

Cheng, L. (2012). Cultural diversity in a global society. Science, 336 (6078), 155–157.

Chong, E. K. M. (2015). Global citizenship education and Hong Kong’s secondary school curriculum guidelines. Asian Education and Development Studies, 4 (2), 221–247.

Clarke, V. (2004). Students’ global awareness and attitudes to internationalism in a world of cultural convergence. Journal of Research in International Education, 3 (1), 51–70.

Crane, D. (2014). Cultural globalization and the dominance of the American film industry: Cultural policies, national film industries, and transnational film. International Journal of Cultural Policy, 20 (4), 365–382.

Crothers, L. (2007). Globalization and American popular culture . Rowman & Littlefield.

Cruikshank, J. (1998). Are we aiding the enemy? Adult education in the global economy. Canadian Journal of University Continuing Education, 24 (1), 101–113.

Csaba, L. (2003). Globalization and economic systems: A homogeneity test. In A. Krizsán & V. Zentai (Eds.), Reshaping globalization: Multilateral dialogues and new policy initiatives (pp. 195–214). Central European University Press.

Davies, I., Evans, M., & Reid, A. (2005). Globalising citizenship education? A critique of “global education” and “citizenship education.” British Journal of Educational Studies, 53 (1), 66–89.

DeLoach, S. B., Kurt, M., & Olitsky, N. H. (2015). Does content matter? Analyzing the change in global awareness between business- and nonbusiness-focused short-term study abroad courses. Journal of Teaching in International Business, 26 (1), 4–31.

Deloitte. (2020). Securing trust in the global COVID-19 supply chain . https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/global/Documents/Life-Sciences-Health-Care/gx-lshc-future-of-trust.pdf

Diaz, C., Massialas, B., & Xanthopoulos, J. (1999). Global perspectives for educators . Allyn & Bacon.

Dill, J. S. (2013). The longings and limits of global citizenship education: The moral pedagogy of schooling in a cosmopolitan age . Routledge.

Dobson, A. (2011). Sustainability citizenship . Greenhouse.

Dower, N. (2002). Global citizenship: Yes or no? In N. Dower & J. Williams (Eds.), Global citizenship: A critical introduction (pp. 30–40). Routledge.

Eccleston-Turner, M., & Upton, H. (2021). International collaboration to ensure equitable access to vaccines for COVID-19: The ACT-Accelerator and the COVAX facility. The Milbank Quarterly, 99 (2), 426–449.

Engel, L. C. (2014). Global citizenship and national (re)formations: Analysis of citizenship education reform in Spain. Education, Citizenship and Social Justice, 9 (3), 239–254.

Evans, M., Ingram, L., MacDonald, A., & Weber, N. (2009). Mapping the “global dimension” of citizenship education in Canada: The complex interplay between theory, practice and context. Citizenship Teaching and Learning, 5 (2), 16–34.

Falk, R. (2002). An emergent matrix of citizenship: Complex, uneven, and fluid. In N. Dower & J. Williams (Eds.), Global citizenship: A critical introduction (pp. 15–29). Routledge.

Fancera, S. F., & Saperstein, E. (2021). Preparations, expectations, and external school contexts: Navigating the COVID-19 school closures. Journal of Organizational and Educational Leadership, 6 (3), 1–35.

Feld, W. J. (1998). The integration of the European Union and domestic political issues . Praeger.

Fernekes, W. R. (2016). Global citizenship education and human rights education: Are they compatible with U.S. civic education? Journal of International Social Studies, 6 (2), 34–57.

Follesdal, A. (2002). Citizenship: European and global. In N. Dower & J. Williams (Eds.), Global citizenship: A critical introduction (pp. 71–83). Routledge.

Fraser, N. (2009). Scales of justice: Reimagining political space in a globalizing world . Columbia University Press.

Fry, S., Griffin, S., & Kirshner, J. (2012). Learning global citizenship: Students and teachers in Belize and the U.S. take action together. Social Studies and the Young Learner, 25 (2), 23–27.

Galea, S. (2020). Compassion in a time of COVID-19. The Lancet, 395 (10241), 1897–1898.

Gallavan, N. P. (2008). Examining teacher candidates’ views on teaching world citizenship. The Social Studies, 99 (6), 249–254.

Garcia, B., & Van Soest, D. (2006). Social work practice for social justice: Cultural competence in action . Council on Social Work Education.

Gaudelli, W. (2015). A call for global citizenship education. Education Week . https://www.edweek.org/policy-politics/opinion-a-call-for-global-citizenship-education/2015/07

Gaudelli, W. (2016). Global citizenship education: Everyday transcendence . Routledge.

Gibson, K. L., Rimmington, G. M., & Landwehr-Brown, M. (2008). Developing global awareness and responsible world citizenship with global learning. Roeper Review, 30 (1), 11–23.

Gieser, J. D. (2015). A sociocultural investigation of identity: How students navigate the study abroad experience. Journal of College Student Development, 56 (6), 637–643.

Goldsmith, D. (2012). Enhancing global awareness: Paid to think . BenBella Books.

Greene, M. (1998). Introduction: Teaching for social justice. In W. Ayers, J. A. Hunt, & T. Quinn (Eds.), Teaching for social justice: A democracy and education reader (pp. xxvii–xlvi). Teachers College Press.

Guibernau, M. (2007). The identity of nations . Polity.

Guillén, M. (2001). Is globalization civilizing, destructive or feeble? A critique of five key debates in the social science literature. Annual Review of Sociology, 27, 235–260.

Gunzelmann, B. (2014). Global voices and global visions: Education for excellence, understanding, peace and sustainability . Rowman & Littlefield.

Guo, L. (2014). Preparing teachers to educate for 21st century global citizenship: Envisioning and enacting. Journal of Global Citizenship & Equity Education, 4 (1), 1–23.

Haring-Smith, T. (2011). The Magellan Project: Developing global citizens through independent study abroad. About Campus, 16 (5), 9–12.

Hawks, M., & Pillay, T. (2017). Institutionalizing an “ethic of care” into the teaching of ethics for pre-service teachers. Journal of Critical Thought and Praxis, 6 (2), 66–83.

Hawthorn, G. (2003). Running the world through windows. In D. Archibugi (Ed.), Debating cosmopolitics (pp. 16–26). Verso.

He, E., & Laurent, L. (2020). The world is masking up, some are opting out . https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2020-opinion-coronavirus-global-face-mask-adoption/

He, Y., Lungren, K., & Pynes, P. (2017). Impact of short-term study abroad program: Inservice teachers’ development of intercultural competence and pedagogical beliefs. Teaching and Teacher Education, 66, 147–157.

Heater, D. (2004). World citizenship: Cosmopolitan thinking and its opponents . Continuum.

Held, D. (1995). Democracy and the global order: From the modern state to cosmopolitan governance . Polity.

Hirst, P., & Thompson, G. (1996). Globalization in question: The international economy and the possibilities of governance . Polity.

Hollings, S. (2020). COVID-19: The changing face of global citizenship and the rise of pandemic citizenship. Knowledge Cultures, 8 (3), 81–91.

Howe, E. R., & Xu, S. (2013). Transcultural teacher development within the dialectic of the global and local: Bridging gaps between East and West. Teaching and Teacher Education, 36, 33–43.

Hytten, K. (2015). Ethics in teaching for democracy and social justice. Democracy & Education, 23 (2), 1–10.

Ibrahim, T. (2004). Global citizenship: Teaching and learning about cultural diversity. Race Equality Teaching, 22 (2), 29–33.

Israel, R. (2012). Global citizenship: A path to building identity and community in a globalized world . The Global Citizens’ Initiative.

Johansson, E. (2009). The preschool child of today—the world-citizen of tomorrow? International Journal of Early Childhood, 41 (2), 79–95.

Katz, I. T., Weintraub, R., Bekker, L.-G., & Brandt, A. M. (2021). From vaccine nationalism to vaccine equity—finding a path forward. The New England Journal of Medicine, 384 (14), 1281–1283.

Klein, J., & Wikan, G. (2019). Teacher education and international practice programmes: Reflections on transformative learning and global citizenship. Teaching and Teacher Education, 79 (1), 93–100.

Kolodko, G. W. (2011). Truth, errors, and lies: Politics and economics in a volatile world . Columbia University Press.

Kordos, M., & Vojtovic, S. (2016). Transnational corporations in the global world economic environment. Procedia: Social and Behavioral Sciences, 230, 150–158.

Kurt, M. R., Olitsky, N. H., & Geis, P. (2013). Assessing global awareness over short-term study abroad sequence: A factor analysis. Frontiers, 23 (fall), 22–41.

Kyei-Blankson, L., & Nur-Awaleh, M. (2018). Shifting teacher cultural awareness and teaching through study abroad experiences. International Journal of Multidisciplinary Perspectives in Higher Education, 3 (1), 31–44.

Laasch, O., & Conaway, R. N. (2015). Principles of responsible management: Glocal sustainability, responsibility, and ethics . Cengage Learning.

Langran, I. (2016). Introduction. In I. Langran & T. Birk (Eds.), Globalization and global citizenship: Interdisciplinary approaches (pp. 1–8). Routledge.

Lee, S. S. (2020). Fostering “global citizens”? Trends in global awareness, agency, and competence in textbooks worldwide 1950–2011. Prospects, 48, 215–236.

Leggae, D. G., & Kim, S. (2021). Equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines: Cooperation around research and production capacity is critical. Journal for Peace and Nuclear Disarmament, 4 (S1), 73–134.

Leslie, A. (2009). Sustainable communities: The role of global citizenship education. POLIS Journal, 2, 1–44.

Levine, J. (2014). Teaching about the wider world: TC launches a unique program to help US teachers think globally. Teachers College Newsroom . http://www.tc.columbia.edu/articles/2014/september/teaching-about-the-wider-world-tc-launches-a-unique-program/

Maas, W. (2014). European Union citizenship in retrospect and prospect. In E. F. Isin & P. Nyers (Eds.), Routledge handbook of global citizenship studies (pp. 409–417). Routledge.

Maguth, B. M. (2012). Investigating student use of technology for engaged citizenship in a global age. Education Science, 2 (2), 57–76.

Marzall, K. (2005). Environmental extension: Promoting ecological citizenship. Environments Journal, 33 (3), 65–77.

McCausland, T. (2020). COVID-19’s impact on globalization and innovation. Research-Technology Management, 63 (6), 54–59.

McCormick, J. (1999). Understanding the European Union: A concise introduction . Palgrave Macmillan.

McKinley, J. (2012). Pop stars join growing effort to aid the poor. The New York Times . https://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/23/arts/music/hugh-evans-29-force-behind-global-festival-on-great-lawn.html

Mendoza, S. (2007). Preparing students for the global economy. The Hispanic Outlook in Higher Education, 17 (14), 12–14.

Milman, N. B. (2015). Examining global and glocal awareness, knowledge, and competency. Distance Learning, 11 (4), 1–4.

Motani, Y. (2007). The emergence of global citizenship education in Japan. In E. D. Stevick & B. Levinson (Eds.), Reimagining civic education: How diverse societies form democratic citizens (pp. 271–291). Rowman & Littlefield.

Mullens, J. B., & Cuper, P. (2012). Fostering global citizenship through faculty-led international programs . Information Age Publishing.

Myers, J. P. (2006). Rethinking the social studies curriculum in the context of globalization: Education for global citizenship in the US. Theory and Research in Social Education, 34 (3), 370–394.

Myers, J. P. (Ed.) (2020). Research on teaching global issues: Pedagogy for global citizenship education . Information Age Publishing.

Natalegawa, M. (2018). The future of ASEAN. Australian Institute of International Affairs . http://www.internationalaffairs.org.au/australianoutlook/the-future-of-asean/

Newlands, D. (2002). Economic globalisation and global citizenship. In N. Dower & J. Williams (Eds.), Global citizenship: A critical introduction (pp. 213–221). Routledge.

Noddings, N. (2005). Educating citizens for global awareness . Teachers College Press.

OECD (2020). Public procurement and infrastructure governance: Initial policy responses to the coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis . https://www.oecd.org/coronavirus/policy-responses/public-procurement-and-infrastructure-governance-initial-policy-responses-to-the-coronavirus-covid-19-crisis-c0ab0a96

Oxfam (1997). A curriculum for global citizenship . Oxfam.

Oxfam (2006). Education for global citizenship: A guide for schools . Oxfam.

Partnership for 21st Century Skills (2009). P21 framework definitions (ED519462) . ERIC. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED519462.pdf

Penner, J., & Sanderse, J. (2017). The role of economic citizenship education in advancing global citizenship. Policy & Practice: A Development Education Review, 24, 138–158.

Peterson, A., & Warwick, P. (2015). Global learning and education: Key concepts and effective practice . Routledge.

Petit dit Dariel, O. (2009). Nursing education: In pursuit of cosmopolitanism. Nurse Education Today, 29 (5), 566–569.

Pettifor, A. (2017). Brexit and its consequences. Globalizations, 14 (1), 127–132.

Pike, G. (2008). Reconstructing the legend: Educating for global citizenship. In A. A. Abdi & L. Schultz (Eds.), Educating for human rights and global citizenship (pp. 223–237). State University of New York Press.

Polèse, M., & Stren, R. (Eds.) (2000). The social sustainability of cities: Diversity and the management of change . University of Toronto Press.

Putman, S. M., & Byker, E. J. (2020). Global citizenship 1-2-3: Learn, think, and act. Kappa Delta Pi Record, 56 (1), 16–21.

Reimers, F. (2020). Educating students to improve the world . Springer.

Reysen, S., & Katzarska-Miller, I. (2013). A model of global citizenship: Antecedents and outcomes. International Journal of Psychology, 48 (5), 858–870.

Roeper, A. (2008). Global awareness and gifted children: Its joy and history. Roeper Review, 30 (1), 8–10.

Rothkopf, D. (1997). In praise of cultural imperialism? Effects of globalization on culture. Foreign Policy, 107, 38–53.

Rowe, D. (2007). Education for a sustainable future. Science, 317 (5836), 323–324.

Ruby, A. (2014). Preparing global citizens. International Educator, 23 (5), 54–57.

Saperstein, D. (2008). The European counterterrorist as the next US cold warrior: Why the United States should select from the German and British models of procedure, evidence, and oversight for national security wiretapping. Fordham International Law Journal, 32 (6), 1947–1989.

Saperstein, D. (2010). America’s republic Valhalla vanished: The rise and fall of the Hall of Fame for Great Americans. Hindsight Graduate History Journal, 4, 65–89.

Schattle, H. (2008). The practices of global citizenship . Rowman & Littlefield.

Shaw, T. M., Grant, J. A., & Cornelissen, S. (Eds.) (2011). The Ashgate research companion to regionalisms . Ashgate.

Shore, C. (2000). Building Europe: The cultural politics of European integration . Routledge.

Singh, S., & Singh, S. K. (2020). Practicing empathy during COVID19 pandemic. Annals of Clinical Trials and Vaccines Research, 3 (1), 3.

Sisk, D. A. (2010). Fostering global awareness and global learning for gifted students. Gifted Education International, 27 (1), 10–18.

Slavich, G. M., Roos, L. G., & Zaki, J. (2021). Social belonging, compassion, and kindness: Key ingredients for fostering resilience, recovery, and growth from the COVID-19 pandemic. Anxiety, Stress, & Coping, 9, 1–8.

Stiglitz, J. E. (2002). Globalization and its discontents . W. W. Norton & Company.

Swanson, A. (2020). As new NAFTA takes effect, much remains undone. The New York Times . https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/01/business/economy/usmca-takes-effect.html

Telò, M. (Ed.) (2014). European Union and new regionalism: Competing regionalism and global governance in a post-hegemonic era . Ashgate.

Trooboff, S., Vande Berg, M., & Rayman, J. (2008). Employer attitudes toward study abroad. Frontiers, 15, 17–33.

Tuca, S. (2014). The relationship between globalization and the economic crisis. The USV Annals of Economics and Public Administration, 14 (1[19]), 120–126.

UN (2020). United Nations comprehensive response to COVID-19: Saving lives, protecting societies, recovering better. https://www.un.org/sites/un2.un.org/files/un_comprehensive_response_to_covid-19_june_2020.pdf

UNESCO (2002). UNESCO universal declaration on cultural diversity. http://www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/FIELD/Tashkent/pdf/124687e_underwater_cultural_heritage_2001_eng.pdf

UNESCO (2015). Global citizenship education: Topics and learning objectives. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000232993

UNESCO (2016). National Commissions for UNESCO: Annual report 2016. https://qnc.edu.gov.qa/_Layouts/QNC.News/QncDownload.aspx?trg=/ReportDocs/AnnualReport2017NatCom_En_Fr.pdf

UNICEF (2013). Global citizenship: A high school educator’s guide (Grades 9–12). https://www.gcedclearinghouse.org/sites/default/files/resources/Global%20citizenship_1.pdf

Van Elteren, M. (2011). Cultural globalization and transnational flows of things American. In P. Pachura (Ed.), The systemic dimension of globalization (pp. 149–172). InTech.

Wang, J., Peyvandi, A., & Coffey, B. S. (2014). Does a study abroad class make a difference in student’s global awareness? An empirical study. International Journal of Education Research, 9 (1), 151–162.

Wang, Y. (2007). Globalization enhances cultural identity. Intercultural Communication Studies, 16 (1), 83–86.

Werner, W., & Case, R. (1997). Themes in global education. In I. Wright & A. Sears (Eds.), Trends and issues in Canadian social studies education (pp. 176–194). Pacific Education Press.

Whitehead, D. M. (2015). Global learning: Key to making excellence inclusive. Liberal Education, 101 (3), 6–13.

Zayani, M. (2011). Media, cultural diversity and globalization: Challenges and opportunities. Journal of Cultural Diversity, 18 (2), 48–54.

Zhao, L. (2014). The influence of the culture on managers’ capital-budget decisions. International Journal of Accounting and Taxation, 2 (4), 49–55.

Zimmerman, K., & Benjamin, D. (2021). We studied one million students. This is what we learned about masking. The New York Times . https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/10/opinion/covid-schools-masks.html

Zolo, D. (1997). Cosmopolis: Prospects for world government . Polity.

Download references

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Faculty of Education, University of Montreal, Marie-Victorin Building, 90 Vincent-D’Indy Ave, Montreal, QC, H2V 2S9, Canada

Evan Saperstein

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Evan Saperstein .

Additional information

Publisher's note.

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

About this article

Saperstein, E. Post-pandemic citizenship: The next phase of global citizenship education. Prospects 53 , 203–217 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11125-021-09594-2

Download citation

Accepted : 02 October 2021

Published : 04 January 2022

Issue Date : November 2023

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s11125-021-09594-2

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Globalization
• Global citizenship
• Global citizenship education
• Find a journal
• Publish with us
• Track your research

Search the United Nations

• UNAI Principles
• Map of UNAI Members
• List of UNAI Members
• Special Series
• Select UN Events
• UNAI Events
• SDGs Best Practices
• SDGs Guidelines
• SDGs Training Sessions
• SDGs Workshops
• The Why Join Guide
• Tools for Researchers
• Bulletin Board
• Submit the 2024 Activity Report
• Become a Millennium Fellow
• UNAI Voices
• Sustainable Development Goals
• UN Agencies
• UN Information Centres
• Dag Hammarskjöld Library
• UN Stories Archive
• UN Publications
• Internships

Global Citizenship

Global citizenship is the umbrella term for social, political, environmental, and economic actions of globally minded individuals and communities on a worldwide scale. The term can refer to the belief that individuals are members of multiple, diverse, local and non-local networks rather than single actors affecting isolated societies. Promoting global citizenship in sustainable development will allow individuals to embrace their social responsibility to act for the benefit of all societies, not just their own.

The concept of global citizenship is embedded in the Sustainable Development Goals though SDG 4: Insuring Inclusive and Quality Education for All and Promote Life Long Learning, which includes global citizenship as one of its targets. By 2030, the international community has agreed to ensure that all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including global citizenship. Universities have a responsibility to promote global citizenship by teaching their students that they are members of a large global community and can use their skills and education to contribute to that community.

About the Hub:   Ana G. Méndez University (UAGM)  is a private non-profit higher education institution founded over seven decades ago in Puerto Rico. UAGM provides quality education and promotes research with a vision of innovation and entrepreneurship. Through its three main campuses (Gurabo, Cupey, and Carolina) and eight off-campus centers located around the island, UAGM offers a variety of academic programs in different modalities and excellent services designed to fulfill the needs and expectations of a diverse student population.  UAGM is the global center of UNAI to promote the exchange of knowledge and information regarding global citizenship. Its activities in this theme solidify its commitment to the development of global citizens by ensuring that its graduates are fully prepared to assume leadership roles and present solutions to humanity's challenges and needs.

Ana G. Mendez University

UNITED NATIONS

• Universal Declaration of Human Rights

TAKE ACTION

• Lazy Person's Guide
• UN Volunteers
• Youth Engagement
• Past Contests and Scholarships
• Request a Speaker
• Visit the UN

NEWS AND MEDIA

• UN News Centre
• Press Releases
• Office of the Spokesperson
• UN in Action
• UN Social Media
• The Essential UN

ISSUES AND CAMPAIGNS

• SDG of the Month
• Observances and Commemorations
• Celebrity Advocates for the UN

Essay on Global Citizenship

Students are often asked to write an essay on Global Citizenship in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Global Citizenship

What is global citizenship.

Global citizenship means seeing yourself as a part of the whole world, not just your country. It’s about caring for people and the planet, no matter where they are. Global citizens work together to solve big problems like poverty and climate change.

Responsibilities of Global Citizens

Being a global citizen means you have duties. You should learn about different cultures, respect the environment, and help others. It’s about making good choices that don’t hurt others around the world.

Benefits of Global Citizenship

When we act as global citizens, we make the world better. We get to understand different people and can work on making peace. It also helps us to solve big problems that affect everyone, like keeping the earth clean and safe.

250 Words Essay on Global Citizenship

Global citizenship is the idea that everyone on our planet is part of a big community. It’s like thinking of the whole world as one big neighborhood. People who believe in global citizenship care about issues that affect everyone, no matter where they live.

Caring for the Earth

One part of being a global citizen is looking after our planet. This means doing things to protect the environment, like recycling or turning off lights to save energy. It’s about keeping the Earth clean and safe for all of us and the animals too.

Helping Each Other

Global citizens also think it’s important to help people in need. This could be by giving money to charities that work all over the world or by learning about different cultures and understanding people who are different from us.

Another big idea in global citizenship is fairness. This means making sure that people everywhere have what they need, like food, water, and a chance to go to school. It’s not fair if some people have too much while others have too little.

Working Together

Finally, global citizenship is about countries and people working together to solve big problems. This can be anything from fighting diseases that spread across countries to making sure everyone has a good place to live.

In short, being a global citizen means caring for our world and the people in it. It’s about learning, sharing, and working together to make the world a better place for everyone.

500 Words Essay on Global Citizenship

Imagine a big school that has students from every part of the world. These students learn together, play together, and help each other. This is a bit like what global citizenship is. Global citizenship means thinking of yourself as a part of one big world community. Instead of just looking after the people in your own town or country, you care about everyone on Earth.

Why is Global Citizenship Important?

Our world is connected in many ways. What happens in one country can affect many others. For example, if the air gets polluted in one place, it can travel to other places and make the air dirty there too. By being global citizens, we can work together to solve big problems like pollution, poverty, and sickness that can touch people everywhere.

Respecting Cultures and People

Global citizens respect and learn about different cultures and people. Every culture has its own special stories, food, and ways of living. When you are a global citizen, you are curious about these differences and you understand that every person is important, no matter where they come from.

Taking Care of the Planet

Our Earth is the only home we have. Global citizens take care of it by doing things like recycling, saving water, and planting trees. We all share the same air, water, and land, so it’s everyone’s job to look after them.

Helping Others

Global citizens try to help people who need it. This can be by giving money to charities that work all over the world or by being kind to someone from another country who moves to your town. When we help each other, the whole world becomes a better place.

Learning and Sharing Knowledge

Being a global citizen also means learning about the world and sharing what you know. You can read books, watch films, or talk to people from different places. Then, you can share what you learn with your friends and family.

Being Active in Your Community

Even though global citizenship is about the whole world, it starts in your own community. You can join groups that clean up parks, help people who are sick, or raise money for good causes. By doing small things where you live, you are being a part of something much bigger.

Global citizenship is like being a friend to the entire world. It means learning, sharing, and caring for others and our planet. Even if you are just one person, you can make a big difference. When we all work together as global citizens, we make the world a happier, healthier, and more peaceful place.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

If you’re looking for more, here are essays on other interesting topics:

• Essay on Indian Tourism
• Essay on Everyday Life
• Essay on Everyone Deserves A Second Chance

Apart from these, you can look at all the essays by clicking here .

Happy studying!

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

What you need to know about global citizenship education

For centuries, common aspirations for mutual respect, peace, and understanding were reflected in traditional concepts across cultures and civilizations – from 'ubuntu' (I am because of who we all are) in African philosophy to 'sumak kawsay' (harmony within communities, ourselves and nature) in Quechua. Although the term "global citizenship education" (GCED) was only coined in 2011, the values it represents have been central to UNESCO's mission since its founding in 1947.

By building peace through education and reminding humanity of our common ties, UNESCO has long championed the ideas now formalized as GCED. As our world grows increasingly interdependent, GCED is more vital than ever for international solidarity and inspiring learners of all ages to positively contribute to their local and global communities. But what exactly does global citizenship education entail, why it matters today, and how UNESCO is driving this movement?

What’s the idea behind global citizenship?

Unlike citizenship – special rights, privileges and responsibilities related to "belonging" to a particular nation/state, the global citizenship concept is based on the idea we are connected not just with one country but with a broader global community. So, by positively contributing to it, we can also influence change on regional, national and local levels. Global citizens don't have a special passport or official title, nor do they need to travel to other countries or speak different languages to become one. It's more about the mindset and actual actions that a person takes daily. A global citizen understands how the world works, values differences in people, and works with others to find solutions to challenges too big for any one nation.

Citizenship and global citizenship do not exclude each other. Instead, these two concepts are mutually reinforcing. 

What is global citizenship education about?

Economically, environmentally, socially and politically, we are linked to other people on the planet as never before. With the transformations that the world has gone through in the past decades – expansion of digital technology, international travel and migration, economic crises, conflicts, and environmental degradation – how we work, teach and learn has to change, too. UNESCO promotes global citizenship education to help learners understand the world around them and work together to fix the big problems that affect everyone, no matter where they're from.

GCED is about teaching and learning to become these global citizens who live together peacefully on one planet. What does it entail?

Adjusting curricula and content of the lessons to provide knowledge about the world and the interconnected nature of contemporary challenges and threats. Among other things, a deep understanding of human rights, geography, the environment, systems of inequalities, and historical events that underpinned current developments;

Nurturing cognitive, social and other skills to put the knowledge into practice and make it relevant to learners' realities. For example, thinking critically and asking questions about what's equitable and just, taking and understanding other perspectives and opinions, resolving conflicts constructively, working in teams, and interacting with people of different backgrounds, origins, cultures and perspectives; 

Instilling values that reflect the vision of the world and provide purpose, such as respect for diversity, empathy, open-mindedness, justice and fairness for everyone;

Adopting behaviours to act on their values and beliefs: participating actively in the society to solve global, national and local challenges and strive for the collective good.

What UNESCO does in global citizenship education

UNESCO works with countries to improve and rewire their education systems so that they support creativity, innovation and commitment to peace, human rights and sustainable development. 

Provides a big-picture vision for an education that learners of all ages need to survive and thrive in the 21 st century. One key priority is updating the  1974 Recommendation Education for International Understanding, Co-operation and Education relating to Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms , the document underpinning this work.   

Supports the development of curricula and learning materials on global citizenship themes tailored for diverse cultural contexts. Among many examples are the general guidance document on teaching and learning objectives of global citizenship education or recommendations on integrating social and emotional learning principles in the education process.

Studies the positive impact of learning across subjects and builds linkages between sectors and spheres . One of the key focus areas is the Framework on Culture and Arts Education, in which UNESCO highlights the positive impact learning of the arts and through the arts has on academic performance, acquisition of different skills and greater well-being, as well as broadening of the horizons.

Collaborates with partners across UNESCO programmes and the broader UN system to address contemporary threats to human rights and peace and infuse the principles of understanding, non-discrimination and respect for human dignity in education. Among others, UNESCO leads the global education efforts to counter hate speech online and offline, address antisemitism, fight racism, educate about human rights violations and violent pasts.

Monitors how the core values of global citizenship education are reflected in and supported by education policy and the curriculum to deliver it effectively. For example, by collecting global data on this indicator every four years through a survey questionnaire designed for the 1974 Recommendation.

Promotes international collaboration in education through  UNITWIN/UNESCO Chairs , and  UNESCO Associated Schools Network , connecting over 12,000 educational institutions worldwide.

Why does UNESCO prioritize global citizenship education?

Quality education is among 17 Sustainable Development Goals put forth by the United Nations, where GCED is mentioned as one of the topic areas that countries must promote. While leading the global efforts to achieve this goal, UNESCO sees education as the main driver of human development that can accelerate progress in bringing about social justice, gender equality, inclusion, and other Goals. 

UNESCO believes that only an education that provides a global outlook with a deep appreciation of local perspectives can address the cross-cutting challenges of today and tomorrow. This vision is reaffirmed in the Incheon Declaration made in 2015 at the World Education Forum and further reflected in UNESCO's Futures of Education report.     

Based on the evidence that UNESCO has accumulated on GCED impact, learners who benefit from such education from early stages become less prone to conflicts and are more open to resolving them peacefully while respecting each other's differences. It has also proven successful in post-conflict transformation. For example, discussing the root causes of human rights violations that occurred in the past helps to detect alarming tendencies and avoid them in the future. 

How is GCED implemented?

GCED is not a single subject with a set curriculum but rather a framework, a prism through which education is seen. It can be delivered as an integral part of existing subjects – from geography to social studies – or independently. UNESCO supports the dissemination of GCED on different levels and in multiple areas of life beyond the classroom.

On a policy level: Governments can develop national strategies and frameworks that recognize the importance of understanding local issues from a broader global perspective and prioritize education programmes that reflect this vision. 

In the classroom: Teachers can incorporate content and materials that build awareness of global issues and intercultural understanding. For instance, in Geography, pupils can learn about climate change and the distribution of resources. In Social Sciences, they find out how environmental degradation impacts children's rights worldwide. In Science, they discover how trees soak up carbon from the atmosphere through photosynthesis and can help tackle climate change. Teachers can also assign students a group project where they will have to devise a campaign to address climate change in their local community.

Out of school: Museums and cultural institutions can design exhibits and educational materials that inspire global citizenship. Exchange programs allow young people to broaden their horizons by visiting other communities and countries.

Related items

• Civic education

• Architecture and Design
• Asian and Pacific Studies
• Business and Economics
• Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
• Computer Sciences
• Cultural Studies
• Engineering
• General Interest
• Geosciences
• Industrial Chemistry
• Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies
• Jewish Studies
• Library and Information Science, Book Studies
• Life Sciences
• Linguistics and Semiotics
• Literary Studies
• Materials Sciences
• Mathematics
• Social Sciences
• Sports and Recreation
• Theology and Religion
• Publish your article
• The role of authors
• Promoting your article
• Abstracting & indexing
• Publishing Ethics
• Why publish with De Gruyter
• How to publish with De Gruyter
• Our book series
• Our subject areas
• Your digital product at De Gruyter
• Contribute to our reference works
• Product information
• Tools & resources
• Product Information
• Promotional Materials
• Orders and Inquiries
• FAQ for Library Suppliers and Book Sellers
• Repository Policy
• Free access policy
• Open Access agreements
• Database portals
• For Authors
• Customer service
• People + Culture
• Journal Management
• How to join us
• Working at De Gruyter
• Mission & Vision
• De Gruyter Foundation
• De Gruyter Ebound
• Our Responsibility
• Partner publishers

Your purchase has been completed. Your documents are now available to view.

An Introduction to Global Citizenship

• Nigel Dower
• X / Twitter

Please login or register with De Gruyter to order this product.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
• Copyright year: 2003
• Audience: College/higher education;
• Main content: 208
• Keywords: Politics
• Published: February 25, 2003
• ISBN: 9781474467834

• Our work with schools
• What is global citizenship?
• Global citizenship guides
• Support for educators

Tim Fransham/Oxfam

Oxfam education

Ideas, resources and support for active global citizenship in the classroom and beyond.

What is Global Citizenship?

Global citizenship is the term for social, environmental, and economic actions of individuals and communities who recognise that every person is a citizen of the world.

It is about how decisions in one part of the planet can affect people living in a different part of it, and about how we all share a common humanity and are of equal worth.

It means being open to engaging positively with other identities and cultures and being able to recognise and challenge stereotypes.

It is also about how we use and share the earth's resources fairly and uphold the human rights of all.

What does it mean to be a global citizen?

A global citizen is someone who is aware of and understands the wider world – and their place in it. They are a citizen of the world. They take an active role in their community and work with others to make our planet more peaceful, sustainable and fairer.

Examples of global citizenship

Global citizenship involves...

• Exploring local and global connections and our views, values and assumptions
• Exploring issues of social justice locally and globally
• Exploring the complexity of global issues and engaging with multiple perspectives
• Applying learning to real-world issues and contexts
• Opportunities to make informed, reflective action and be heard

GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP EDUCATION

For Oxfam, global citizenship is all about encouraging young people to develop the knowledge, skills and values they need to engage with the world. And it's about the belief that we can all make a difference.

Education for global citizenship isn't an additional subject – it's a framework for learning, reaching beyond school to the wider community. It can be promoted in class through the existing curriculum or through new initiatives and activities.

BENEFITS OF GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP

Global citizenship helps young people to:

• Build their own understanding of world events.
• Think about their values and what's important to them.
• Take learning into the real world.
• Challenge ignorance and intolerance.
• Get involved in their local, national and global communities.
• Develop an argument and voice their opinions.
• See that they have power to act and influence the world around them.

What's more, global citizenship inspires and informs teachers and parents, too. But above all, it shows young people that they have a voice. The world may be changing fast, but they can make a positive difference – and help build a fairer, safer and more secure world for everyone.

Jo-Anne Witcombe/ Oxfam

Teaching resources

Ideas, activities and support for developing global learning in the classroom and beyond.

Salahuddin Ahmed

Practical advice and inspiration for embedding global citizenship in the curriculum and across the whole school.

Active global citizenship

Beyond the classroom, we give young people lots of ways to take action for a better world.

Discover More

Home learning activities.

Global learning at home, in the classroom or wherever you are!

Schools Speak Out

Support young people to demonstrate leadership, take part in our latest campaigns and speak out about global poverty.

Also in this section