Developing Global Sensitivity among Student-Teachers

Developing Global Sensitivity among Student-Teachers

Background
Although there are common features to citizenship education in liberal countries (valuing individual freedoms, tolerance of other beliefs or values, in particular), each state tends to deal with sensitive issues, including those of a global scale, in a way that is culturally and politically specific to it. However, this approach is not always conducive to including students who, for a number of reasons (migration, stigmatization), may be considered minorities.

Furthermore, it does not sufficiently prepare students for life in a globalized world, insofar as communication flows, whether commercial or cultural, go beyond national models in many respects. To foster pupils' sense of belonging at school and prepare them to work and live with people from all parts of the world and from many different cultures, it is crucial that they have access to an education that is open to the world, thanks to teachers trained to tackle sensitive subjects with a global approach that remains rooted in the cardinal values that characterize European societies, such as individual autonomy, fairness, dignity and tolerance.

Objectives
We wanted to contribute to develop and improve the training of future primary and secondary school teachers in global citizenship education (GCE). We also wanted to prepare them to tackle difficult subjects in the classroom, such as religion and migration. We also wanted to expose future teachers to different national perspectives on citizenship. For these reasons, we set up and tested a training scheme enabling students to participate in international interactions with peers from other countries, the aim being to get them to work on a theoretical level but also to enable them to develop their personal (such as openness to the world and tolerance of differences) and professional skills (e.g. putting themselves in the shoes of students from “minority” cultures, mastering different pedagogical practices to tackle culturally complex issues in front of a diverse audience of students). The aim is to enable trainee teachers, through peer exchange, to move away from the national conception of citizenship and consider new teaching practices.

Implementation
The consortium organised 5 transnational meetings (1 online, two in Nantes, 1 in Germany and 1 in Belgium). During the project lifetime, two multiplier events were organised to present the GlobalSense methodology and project results : one in Weingarten (2023) and one in nantes (2024).

The project also focused on international student exchanges, both online and in mobility in order to develop and experiment the GlobalSense methodology and produce lesson plans. Online exchanges between students took place in April and Novembre 2022 and were completed by three learning activity in mobility : Weingarten (2023), Nantes and Brussels in 2024.
These activities focused on peer-to-peer exchanges. Students were able to learn about other teaching methods and pedagogical approaches, specifically in the field of Global Citizenship Education (GCED). They also developed critical thinking about the challenges and strengths faced by different education and teacher training systems in terms of integrating GCED.

The consortium worked on the preparation and production of 5 deliverables combining research and training and several scientific publications (see details in other sections).

Results
The consortium has built up a database of lesson plans, produced by students (PR 1), available to teacher trainers and primary and secondary school teachers.
The methodology of rhetorical exercises (PR 2) is based on the analysis of student interactions. The rhetorical exercises, tested on an exploratory basis with a view to future studies, provide further exposure to established national common sense.
The research report (PR3) has reached an academic audience, increasingly concerned by the challenges of education for global citizenship. The report has also been published in scientific journals and books (see dissemination section).
Thanks to our fieldwork, we identified the most fruitful professional and pedagogical practices for training future teachers to tackle global issues in a way that is sensitive to the diversity of their student body (PR4).
Finally, policy and administrative recommendations for enhancing multicultural sensitivity and digital capabilities in higher education have been collected in a report (PR5).

The Partners:

Nantes Université, France - Coordinator

PAEDAGOGISCHE HOCHSCHULE WEINGARTEN, Germany
THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY OF JERUSALEM, Israel
UNIVERSITE LIBRE DE BRUXELLES, Belgium