Curriculum for Global Citizenship

Abstract

This paper proposes the need to focus on developing holistic standards as the foundation for creating a curriculum for global citizenship and proposes a set of attributes that can serve as a beginning for a discussion of those standards. The need to make decisions about what to include and exclude in any specific school's curriculum is also discussed.The fast-paced change in the latter half of the 20th century that led to a technology-based, global society has continued unabated into the 21st century (Wagner, 2008). It is widely acknowledged that not only has the context of human activity changed, but children and youth have changed also (Tapscott, 2008). This dynamic interaction has left parents, educators, and concerned citizens throughout the world perplexed as to how best to prepare children and youth for successful adulthood. One alternative that has gained increasing support is to prepare children and youth for global citizenship. Discussions on precisely how to do that are often seen in their most concrete form in discussing curriculum.Traditional approaches to curriculum have presented a list of courses to study (Collins English Dictionary, 2009; Merriam-Webster, 2012). However, some curriculum experts have suggested the focus should be on aims of learning (Cowan & Harding, 1986) or learning outcomes (Stefani, 2004-05). From this perspective, the identification of desired outcomes impacts all phases of curriculum design, implementation, evaluation, and communication.For example, as one identifies desired knowledge, attitudes, and skills that learners should acquire, one also identifies possible assessments by addressing not only what should be assessed, but also why and how. The implication is that one would include in the developed curriculum only those items for which the program or institution is willing to hold itself and its students accountable.As those decisions are made, educators focus concurrendy on understanding how learners would acquire those outcomes and developing an organized sequence of means and methods by which learners will acquire them. Evaluation is then addressed by deciding how to make judgments about the effectiveness of the teaching methods to guide learners to acquire the desired outcomes. Finally, decisions are made about communicating results to interested stakeholders. As this process is implemented, a new cycle in the decision making process would begin.When considering the focus of the curriculum (ie the identification of desired outcomes), there are at least three different starting points:1. Consider different theories of human potential or intelligences;2. define human needs, motives, and what it means to thrive and flourish; or3. identify the demands of citizenship at a particular point in time such as the fast-paced, global information-based society.When considering human potential or intelligences there are a number of well-known frameworks that could be considered. Perhaps the most well-known is Gardner's (1983, 2006) theory of multiple intelligences in which he identified first seven and then perhaps even more specific types of aptitudes for processing information.Other well-known frameworks in this category include the Learner Profile developed by the International Baccalaureate (2009), the Habits of Mind framework developed by Costa and Kallick (2000), and the developmental assets framework developed by the Search Institute (2005, 2006a, 2006b). Included in the category of human needs and flourishing were such frameworks as Maslow's (1954,1971) hierarchy of needs, Diener and Biswas-Diener's (2008) components of well-being, and Seligman's (2011) theory of human flourishing. Finally, the category of 21st century citizenship included the frameworks developed by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills (2009) and Wagner (2008, 2012).A list of attributes was developed from an analysis of the above mentioned frameworks (Huitt, 2012a) and organized using the domains of the Brilliant Star framework (Huitt, 2010). …