There is a public perception that Canada is an ideal place for cultivating global citizenship because of its culturally plural demographics and official policies of multiculturalism. Global Citizenship Education (GCE) is a growing field in Canadian education and is an explicit focus in the Alberta social studies curriculum. This thesis brings together four conversations within which multiculturalism and GCE are both related and conflated: (a) the public perceptions of Canada as a model of cultural diversity and global citizenship, (b) the scholarly discussions of GCE and multiculturalism, (c) the policy context where multiculturalism is set alongside GCE, and (d) the practical ways that the two are mutually related in curriculum and lesson documents. There are four interrelated sections to this thesis; each identifies the tensions inherent to multiculturalism, GCE, and the perceived relationship between these fields. First is a wider philosophical and theoretical framing of the topic. Second is the examination of educational research on the topic. Third is a critical discourse analysis of policy, curriculum, and lesson plan documents in the province of Alberta. Last is a synthesis of the findings from all three sections. The analysis finds that there are philosophical and ideological tensions inherent to both fields and to the relationships between them. This contributes to conceptual and ideological conflation and confusion. This finding raises some important concerns in terms of possibilities and constraints to thinking about cultural diversity and social inequities in new ways. It highlights how multicultural contexts of GCE can lead to the recreation of tensions, conflation, and ambiguity. However, the Alberta context demonstrates that a multicultural context can also open critical spaces and possibilities for GCE through engagements with tensions and complexities. Thus this thesis contributes theoretically, by presenting a framework and perspective for interrogating and critically inquiring into the relationship between the two fields. It also contributes to the policy and curriculum discussions in educational research and practice by highlighting the importance of foregrounding key tensions inherent to each field and by identifying the potential negative consequences of leaving these tensions implicit.

The concept of global citizenship has permeated the Canadian institutional landscape in recent years. Global citizenship is presented in contested and complex ways by academics, yet non-governmental organizations present it as a well understood, inherently positive, and unproblematic concept. The purpose of this study is to explore and contextualize the concept of “engaged global citizens” within youth-focused international development programs. Through a case study analysis of the World University Service of Canada’s International Seminar program, I examine Canadian post-secondary students’ understanding of global citizenship and explore the multiplicity of factors affecting their engagement. This study relies primarily on longitudinal interview data collected with a small sample of participants over a period of five months and a point-in time interview phase conducted with a larger number of participants while they were taking part in the International Seminar in West Africa.

This study seeks to contribute to an understanding of student attitudes toward global citizenship at the classroom level. Previous quantitative studies of civic attitudes have generally been designed for large sample sizes, and qualitative assessments are time consuming for researchers. This dissertation presents a tool utilizing Q methodology to bridge the gap between quantitative and qualitative measures of attitudes. The first phase of the study focuses on the design and validation of the research tool. The second phase of the study describes the implementation of the tool using a pre and post design to capture the shifts in attitudes that high school students have about global citizenship after completing a course in the subject. The results demonstrate that Q methodology is an effective measure for analyzing attitudes at the classroom level. Teachers and researchers can use the information from this tool to ensure that curriculum is effectively moving students toward attitudes of global competence, social responsibility, and global civic engagement.

Nunavut Inuit youths exhibit cultural resilience and leadership. However, researchers frequently neglect such assets and instead emphasize these youths’ challenges or perceived inadequacies. I conducted an intrinsic case study regarding Nunavut Inuit youths’ experiences with an experiential learning program, Northern Youth Abroad (NYA), in order to investigate participants’ growth in cross-cultural awareness, individual career goals, leadership, and global citizenship. Drawing on post-colonial theory, semi-structured interviews, archival research, and participant observation, I argue that NYA’s Nunavut Inuit participants reported significant personal growth in these four objectives. I also provide an in-depth analysis of how NYA’s Nunavut Inuit participants described and developed distinct and rich leadership styles that draw on Inuit and Euro-Canadian influences.

Learning/volunteer abroad (LVA) programs offer important opportunities for students to develop cross-cultural skills and global competence. Universities recognize the value of international experiential learning programs in terms of skills development and career preparation as one component in their internationalization policies and priorities. Scholarly studies on international education and LVA programs have examined university internationalization priorities in promoting international experiential learning. Other scholarly contributions to the field of LVA have documented the nature of students’ experiences, learning outcomes, critical analysis of impacts, and motivations, among other important research areas. Within the LVA scholarship, there are frequent references to the importance of pre-departure training and preparation of students. Many of the references to the value of pre-departure training move beyond practical information (such as staying safe and staying healthy while abroad) to more critical discussions of cross-cultural learning opportunities, ethical considerations, and impacts. Despite these references to the importance of pre-departure training, there are few studies documenting the nature and content of pre-departure training for students participating in international experiences through an academic institution. As a result, there is no clear sense of the range of pre-departure training programs, what information students are receiving as part of their pre-departure training or the impact of training on the outcomes of the students’ learning. This thesis aimed to fill this gap by examining the preparation and training provided to students prior to their international experiences. Through the utilization of a case study approach based on the University of Ottawa’s LVA programs’ pre-departure training, this research specifically analysed the content that is currently employed during pre-departure training and how it ranged across LVA programs. The findings demonstrate that, while all LVA programs provided pre-departure training and covered similar content themes, there was also a range in the content provided across the LVA programs’ pre-departure training. Specifically, the greatest diversity in content was found in the depth of discussion provided to students regarding cross-cultural understanding, ethics, experiential learning, and reflection. Analysis of the identified differences across LVA programs suggest there are likely implications for students’ learning generated from their experience abroad. When students are not prepared to critically understand the complexities associated with living, studying, and/or working cross-culturally and how to reflect upon and generate knowledge from their experiences overseas, learn/volunteer programs may have limited or even negative impacts on cross-cultural understanding and global competence.

The purpose of this study was to develop an instrument to measure high school students’ perceptions of global awareness and attitudes towards global issues. The research questions that guided this study were: (a) Can acceptable validity and reliability estimates be established for an instrument developed to measure high schools students' global awareness? (b) Can acceptable validity and reliability estimates be established for an instrument developed to measure high schools students' attitudes towards global issues? (c) What is the relationship between high school students’ GPA, race/ethnicity, gender, socio-economic status, parents’ education, reading and listening habits, the number of classes taken in the social sciences, whether they speak a second language, and have experienced living in or visiting other countries, and their perception of global awareness and attitudes toward global issues? An ex post facto research design was used and the data were collected using a 4-point Likert-type survey. It was administered in 14 schools in the Miami-Dade County area to 704 students. A factor analysis with an orthogonal varimax rotation was used to identify the underlying constructs that were being measured by the instrument – global education, global citizenship, and global workforce. This was done to estimate construct validity. However, the findings indicated two different factors that included the content of the three constructs but had to be labeled differently. They were: factor 1 – self- perception of global awareness and factor 2 – attitudes towards global social issues. Cronbach’s alpha was used to estimate the reliability of the instrument. These findings helped answer the first two research questions. A hierarchical multiple regression was also used. The findings helped determine the relationship of the two factors to the demographics. The overall model indicated that the demographic variables accounted for significant amounts of variance of each of the factor constructs identified. Among the findings, the independent variables, ethnicity and parents’ education were statistically significant for self-perception of global awareness (factor 1). Gender and SES were statistically significant for attitude toward global social issues (factor 2).

The purpose of the study was to explore researcher experiences of community engagement as part of a long-term higher education community engagement (HECE) partnership with rural schools. The theoretical framework that guided the study was grounded in the construct global citizenship. The instrumental case design followed the qualitative approach from a constructivist epistemology. Semi-structured questionnaires were used for data collection with purposively sampled researchers (n=16), comprising male (n=3) and female (n=13) researchers, including local (n=14) and international (n=2) researchers, who completed their research in the conveniently sampled HECE project. Following thematic analysis, two main themes emerged, namely: researcher perspectives on capacity development in higher education community engagement, and researcher perspectives on higher education community engagement as a core function of higher education institutions. Findings indicated, from researchers’ perspectives, that HECE benefits from collaborative partnerships, and that researchers have opportunities for personal and professional development. Researchers felt that such capacity development was necessary to ensure project sustainability. According to researchers, HECE project challenges or barriers need to be addressed to ensure project sustainability. Higher education requires a community engagement policy that guides the establishment of platforms for knowledge generation, human capacity development and collaborative partnerships in order that the core functions of higher education institutions could be performed. / Dissertation (MEd)--University of Pretoria, 2017. / Educational Psychology / MEd / Unrestricted

The diploma thesis is focused on the global thinking of university students. The aim of the diploma thesis is to find out the level of global thinking of university students and the factors that influence this level. By finding answers to research questions, we get the answer to the goal of the work. The research questions are: What levels of global thinking university students achieve in each segment of global thinking? Are there differences in the thinking of university students in a global context by gender and age? Does the personal experience of a visit to a foreign country affect the level of global thinking and attitudes of the university student? Does the interest in what is happening abroad influence the level of global thinking of university students? How differ the level of global thinking of Czech high school pupils and university students? Following the main goal of the work, is describes the connection between global thinking with globalization and education. The basic source of data is a global thinking questionnaire disseminated among university students across fields of study and universities. The result of the work are factors that statistically significantly affect the achieved level of global thinking of university students and the comparison of the results of the work with the...

Desde los años 1990 (Curtis, Ward, Sharp, & Hankin, 2013), con el desarrollo de un mundo cada vez más globalizado e individualista, diferentes estudios (Andreotti, 2014; Brown, 2017; Byram, 2014b; Guilherme, 2002, 2007; Hoskins, 2006; Hoskins & Crick, 2010; Osler & Starkey, 2015; Shultz, 2007; VanderDussen Toukan, 2017) han mostrado la necesidad de desarrollar políticas educativas que impliquen una forma de aprendizaje donde los estudiantes sean capaces de desarrollar proyectos y competencias cívicas que aborden temas referidos a cuestiones sociales, económicas o ambientales, entre otras. Este enfoque global y colaborativo de la educación es conocido como Global Citizenship Education (GCED), y en él se abordan contenidos como la paz y los derechos humanos, la interculturalidad, la educación ciudadana, el respeto por la diversidad y la tolerancia, y la inclusividad. Partiendo de estos principios, la pregunta de investigación planteada es ver si la canción protesta tiene elementos que pueden servir como materia transversal en el ámbito educativo especialmente en la formación de la GCED en alumnos universitarios. El antecedente del uso de la canción protesta, por ejemplo, para despertar sentimientos hacia movimientos sociales que estaban o están en contra de la guerra y en consecuencia buscar la mejora de los derechos civiles, no es algo novedoso. Los episodios que protagonizó la sociedad estadounidense contra la guerra de Vietnam se pueden considerar como un hito histórico en la reivindicación de estos –The Civil Rights Movement-, pero en la actualidad, dada la globalidad y la individualización del mundo, como ya se ha señalado, parece ser que la canción tipo protesta, a pesar de su producción y conocimiento por parte de la sociedad, no tiene el mismo vigor ni magnitud que en épocas anteriores. Esta aparente carencia de vigencia cuando el mensaje que subyace es el mismo a largo del tiempo, pone de manifiesto una serie de inputs que deben de ser analizados con el fin de comprender y profundizar en los procesos y las complejas interacciones entre este tipo de músicas y la construcción de significados que respondan a los principios de la GCED. Por este motivo el estudio tiene cuatro fases. La primera ha consistido en hacer un vaciado que relacionara prensa y canción protesta, pues se ha considerado que la prensa en el año 2003 –Guerra de Irak-, todavía actuaba como formadora de opiniones. En segundo lugar, se abordaron aquellas canciones que respondieran al concepto de canciones antiguerra de Irak y ver si tenían en la población algún efecto de tipo transversal que respondiera a los principios de la GCED- En tercer lugar, comprobar si una canción mayoritariamente desconocida por los alumnos universitarios Stange Fruit (Meeropol, 1939) que pone de manifiesto y clama contra la violencia racial (Lynching) podría todavía tener vigencia transversalmente en la actualidad en el ámbito educativo universitario, como en la sociedad en general. En cuarto lugar, se decidió estudiar el impacto de un texto con un alto contenido contra el racismo y la venganza con la finalidad de explorar si la carencia de acompañamiento musical produjera los mismos resultados que los estudios anteriores. El texto fue un extracto conocido como “Hath not a Jew eyes? ”de la obra de Shakesepare, “The Merchant of Venice” Global Citizenship Education (GCED), la promoción de educación para una ciudadanía global, representa un compromiso a nivel internacional para abordar temas actuales y globales como pueden ser: medio ambiente y desarrollo sostenible, justicia social, derechos humanos, pobreza y la paz, entre otros.

Thesis advisor: Rebecca C. Schendel / Increased student mobility has been one of the most significant developments observed in the global landscape of higher education. Yet, research on student mobility often takes an individualized perspective on the benefits learners possess through internationalization. Meanwhile, the last two years were marked by the emergence of a new direction in internationalization - the Internationalization of Higher Education for Society (IHES). The surge in studies on how institutions can contribute to society through their internationalization strategies and efforts has proven that the phenomenon which for a long time was focused on individual gains and institutional branding, can evolve and address the larger purpose it serves. However, while many of these works highlight the directions IHES should follow and present good practices, still little is known about international students' perspectives of these dimensions. As a group that was identified as one of the vivid actors of IHES, it is not only reasonable but crucial to gain insight into their understandings, experience, and valorization of this topic. The primary objective of the study is to investigate how students understand the sense of global identity and community engagement through education abroad. By listening to their voices, it makes a methodological contribution in terms of extending the understanding of student mobility as an inherent part of the internationalization discourse in the globalized world. Furthermore, analyzing these voices and deducting their meanings serves towards the materialization of ill-defined concepts of global citizenship and International Higher Education for Society. Finally, the study aims at building a more complex understanding of the current state of international higher education phenomena by exploring connections between internationalization and its missions to society. / Thesis (MA) — Boston College, 2021. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Leadership and Higher Education.