Teaching global citizenship: A case study in applied linguistics

Description

This report evaluates how global citizenship in the UK academy articulates relations between UK society and its human subjects. It has three objectives: * to define the global citizen; * to demonstrate practical and critical approaches to teaching and assessing global citizenship in higher education; * to develop themes and questions for future research. To achieve these three objectives, this report will draw on three papers presented by academics working in the discipline of applied linguistics who presented papers at a Higher Education Academy (HEA) seminar held at Oxford Brookes University on 18 May 2012. * David Block, from the Institute of Education, presented a paper “Exploring global citizenship: from cosmopolitanism ideal to class politics”. * Rachel Wicaksono, from York St John University, presented a paper “Internationalising Talk: A discourse-analytic approach to raising student’s awareness of their construction of (in)competence and (mis)understanding in mixed language” groups. * Juliet Henderson, from Oxford Brookes University, presented a paper “Strategies for critiquing global citizenry: undergraduate research as a possible vehicle”. Together, these papers identified key themes and concerns related to the ways global processes condition and mesh with local discourses, texts and practices to produce the contested notion of the global citizen. Graduate attributes are now a key driver of teaching and learning practices in UK higher education (ESECT 2004). These refer to skills, knowledge and abilities of graduates, which go beyond disciplinary content knowledge or technical expertise, and are intended to prepare students to be active agents of social good both in the workplace and the community. Among the various descriptors of such attributes is that of “global citizenship”. At Oxford Brookes University, the graduate attribute of “global citizenship” is defined as: “Knowledge and skills, showing cross-cultural awareness, and valuing human diversity. The ability to work effectively, and responsibly, in a global context.” Translating such new types of knowledge into teaching materials and activities which encourage deep learning, and so prevent the marker of “global citizen” being subverted and trivialised in today’s increasingly market-oriented universities (Fairclough 1993), raises challenges for colleagues across the subject disciplines.

Links to resources

Teaching subject area

Any

Keywords

ukoer

Faculty or department

Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences\Department of History, Philosophy and Religion, Directorate of Human Resources\OCSLD - Oxford Centre for Staff Learning and Development

OCSLD ref nos

OCSLD_NONE

Graduate attributes

Global citizenship

Copyright

copyright Oxford Brookes University, except where indicated in the item description

Details

  • Owner: Elizabeth Lovegrove
  • Collection: OER
  • Version: 1 (show all)
  • Status: Live
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