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Do the philosophy, concepts and goals of the four core grade eight Saskatchewan curricula require teachers to be global educators?

The twenty-first century is a globally interdependent society, with people connected on a political, cultural, environmental and economic level. To prepare students to graduate into this interconnected community, global education is integral to their schooling. A global education program includes three equally important components: Content, that promotes knowledge of and respect for the pluralistic and diverse world; learning to take Action, which encourages students to recognize and respond to global needs; and Pedagogy, which should incorporate collaboration and allow students too develop as critical thinkers . When the first two categories are taught and learned using an appropriate pedagogical style, students are empowered to find and use their own voices to contribute in their global community.<p>While research demonstrates that Saskatchewan teachers believe that global education is important, studies indicate that global education is not implemented by Saskatchewan teachers. What inhibits implementation of global education? The written curriculum is a document that guides teachers in planning and delivering subject content mandated by Saskatchewan Learning. For this study I inquired into whether the Grade 8 curriculum of the four core subject areas (Mathematics, English Language Arts, Social Studies and Science) require and assist Saskatchewan teachers in being global educators.<p>A text analysis was done to determine if the goals, philosophies and objectives of the Grade Eight Core Curriculum reflected the three components of a global education program, thus requiring Saskatchewan teachers to be global educators. Quantitative analysis was used to determine the number of times global education concepts appeared in the curricula and a qualitative analysis was carried out to determine how the concepts were used. Analysis of the curricula determined that global education concepts are found predominantly the Social Studies document, meaning that teachers of other subject areas do not receive much assistance to be global educators. Analysis also revealed that while global education concepts appeared in the philosophies and goals sections of all curricula, the concepts were lacking or absent in the objectives sections, meaning that the curricula do not provide direct assistance to teachers in implementing global education.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:USASK/oai:usask.ca:etd-01272008-202133
Date30 January 2008
CreatorsKhan, Jacqueline Joan
ContributorsMiller, Dianne M., Lemisko, Lynn, Julien, Richard, Ward, Angela
PublisherUniversity of Saskatchewan
Source SetsUniversity of Saskatchewan Library
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
Sourcehttp://library.usask.ca/theses/available/etd-01272008-202133/
Rightsunrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Saskatchewan or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report.

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