Global Learning and Teaching: towards an ideological framework

Abstract

Copyright © 2021 The Author(s). Recent research in the field of Global Education and Learning (GEL) demonstrates the identification of GEL and teaching as a unique academic field, which will need to be further explored (Ekanayake et al., 2020; Goodwin, 2020; Myers, 2020). Within a more interconnected and cosmopolitan context, there is a need for a response in the way that teachers respond to the teaching of global themes in formal schooling (Appiah, 2008; Bourn, 2020; Merryfield, 1998). The proposed paper builds on findings from my doctoral research in the context of Greece’s primary education, which adopted an action research methodology and developed programmes of GEL in a formal educational setting. Interrogating current notions of critical GEL that view teachers’ ability on incorporating global themes within a linear and instrumentalist approach, the proposed paper seeks to offer an alternative ideological framework for understanding teachers’ positionality in relation to their teaching of themes of global social justice. Reflecting on notions of critical pedagogy (Freire, 1996; Giroux, 2011) and Michael Apple’s work, GEL is viewed as a pedagogical opportunity towards teachers’ ongoing struggle for democracy (Apple, 2018); a democracy within a cosmopolitan context (Appiah, 2007), which needs to be continuously “democratised” (Giddens, 2002).