Abstract
Student attainment of capabilities associated with global citizenship remains a priority for higher education institutions. We report on a scoping review of empirical studies to explore how global citizenship is understood and enacted in higher education. The 29 included studies span the arts, psychology and social sciences, professional degrees, purpose-designed global citizenship courses, and community development, service, and educational travel programs. Notwithstanding considerable diversity in study aims, methodology, and how global citizenship was described, we were able to discern an overarching framework to describe the theoretical contributions to global citizenship education. Our findings contribute to building conceptual clarity both for educators charged with developing curricula and for higher education researchers seeking to explore and evaluate the outcomes of global citizenship education.
Keywords
Introduction
Many higher education internationalization policies across the world claim to prepare graduates to be global citizens (Clifford & Montgomery, 2017), but it is difficult to assess such claims because different ways of understanding global citizenship directly affect the pedagogical approaches applied. Although existing understandings of global citizenship are not necessarily incompatible, aligning them can be challenging. For example, Lilley, Barker, and Harris (2015a) contend that universities develop graduates as global citizens with either corporate skills and/or social skills, whereas the two general forms of global citizenship nominated in the typology of Oxley and Morris (2013) are cosmopolitanism and advocacy.
Overlap is likely between such different notions of global citizenship. For example, cosmopolitanism may involve corporate skills, which can be defined as “market” or “employability” orientations that aim to prepare “workers” for global labor markets (Harrison, 2003, p. 420). At least one conceptual framework for internationalization of the higher education curriculum includes development of both corporate and social skills (Leask & Bridge, 2013). The different purposes for global citizenship education can be confusing, particularly for academics who are introduced to these ideas, not necessarily through their own scholarship, but through university policies that aim to implement broader strategic and pedagogic standards and meet marketing imperatives. This reality creates practical challenges for global citizenship education that we wanted to address at our university. To do this, we embarked on a program of study with the goals of developing better understanding of these challenges and identifying how they might be overcome. Our starting place was to look at the literature. Despite extensive searching, we were able to identify only one other systematic approach to reviewing the literature on this topic; Goren and Yemini (2017) looked at empirical studies of global citizenship education in primary and secondary education. We conducted a scoping review to see how others have approached research in this area and find out what they have discovered. Our search of the tertiary education literature sought to address two broad goals: to explore empirical studies of global citizenship education and to identify how global citizenship education is conceptualized. This article reports on findings related to our first goal; our objectives were to scope the research literature to determine the extent, nature, and implications that arise from empirical study of global citizenship education in higher education.
Method
We used a scoping study with systematic approaches to searching and screening studies for inclusion. Scoping studies are commonly used in the health sciences to map what is known about a topic empirically, to provide an overview of the types of research already conducted, and to identify potential gaps. Using a systematic approach helps avoid overlooking potentially relevant studies.
Our search strategy was developed collaboratively with a university librarian and aimed to identify as many papers as possible relevant to global citizenship education related to our broader program goals, that is, we wanted empirical studies or papers that examined conceptual issues related to global citizenship education. Two key concepts framed our search: global citizenship and higher education. We searched four educational databases: Taylor & Francis, ERIC (ProQuest), ProQuest Educational Journals, and Sage Education. Truncation and Boolean operators were used where database functionality allowed. Combining terms was useful as some databases yielded more than two million results, many containing only single terms that were rejected. Experimentation with combinations of search terms led to an acceptable search yield of what appeared to be relevant papers for the two reviews related to our program goals. (The final search strategies used in each database are available on request.)
The search was limited to studies published after 1945, in the English language and in peer-reviewed journals. We specified 1945 as our starting point in recognition of the impact on global citizenship of the establishment of the United Nations. We focused on peer-reviewed studies, which meant that books, book chapters, book reviews, and nonreviewed works were excluded.
When searching was complete, we conducted a staged screening process. The first stage, abstract and title screening, sought to identify potential papers for either the empirical or conceptual review. Two authors (TF and DH) independently screened titles and abstracts, looking for any empirical study that examined or evaluated aspects of global citizenship education, including educational programs or any paper that contained concepts, frameworks, or expert views on global citizenship. Disagreement about possible inclusions was resolved using a consensus process, involving discussion between the two authors and inclusion of a third author where necessary.
In the next stage, full-text screening, retrieved papers were screened independently by two authors to determine suitability for inclusion in either this empirical review or/and in the conceptual review. All full-text papers were screened by the second author (TF) and another author, who each screened 30 papers. The same consensus process for resolving disagreements about inclusion described above was followed. Reference lists of all included papers were also searched; full-text papers of these titles were retrieved and assessed for inclusion.
We used directed content analysis (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005) for all included papers. The following data were extracted from each paper independently by two authors: the stated aim(s); study design; study sample description; method; findings; any explicit or implied definition or description of global citizenship; other concepts that study authors associated with global citizenship; theoretical framework used, if any; and any implications for higher education educators described by study authors. We grouped papers from the same study together to minimize double counting, and used a structured naming convention (last name of first author and year of first publication) to identify each study (see Table 1 for a list of the studies and related papers). In this article, we have used the study names where appropriate, otherwise we reference the papers. In the analysis, we looked for common themes and approaches, and explored any differences. We categorized included studies in two main ways: by the principle data source and by the main aim or purpose. All categorizations were agreed by at least two authors.
Included Studies by Main Data Source.
Note. VBN = value belief norm; GCS = Global Citizenship Scale.
Results and Discussion
Our search yielded 747 titles after duplicates were removed. We excluded 633 titles and obtained the full-text papers for 114 papers. An additional six full-text papers were sourced from reference list checks. After screening these against our inclusion and exclusion criteria, 33 papers reporting 29 studies were included in the review (see Figure 1). Common reasons for excluding full-text papers were that the paper did not address tertiary education or was not based on empirical evidence. Three studies with more than one paper published were named based on the first published paper. Wynveen, (2012) includes three publications (Tarrant et al., 2014; Wearing et al., 2013, Kyle, & Tarrant, 2012). Two studies, Clifford (2014) and Lilley (2015a) each include two publications: Clifford and Montgomery (2014) and Clifford and Montgomery (2015); Lilley et al., (2015a) and Lilley, Barker, and Harris (2016). Lilley (2015b) was classified as a separate study.
Flow diagram: Screening and selection process.
The majority of papers (29/33, 88%) were published in higher education journals but four (12%) were published in journals from other disciplines, namely, political science (Brunell, 2013; Lorenzini, 2013), intercultural education (Trede, Bowles, & Bridges, 2013), and tourism (Tarrant et al., 2014). Of the higher education journals, five were published in the Journal of Studies in International Education, and two each in the journals Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, Higher Education Quarterly, Teaching in Higher Education, Journal of International Education Research, and Global Societies and Education.
Description of Included Studies
The 33 papers were published between 2008 and 2016. No papers were described in sufficient detail to enable replication, which meant that estimates were needed to describe some aspects of the studies (such as the size of the study samples). The 29 studies were highly heterogeneous. They were largely conducted in seven countries (United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Ireland, Spain, and Hong Kong); four included data from several countries (Alfred, 2012; Clifford, 2014; Khoo, 2011; Parmenter, 2011).
Primary Data Source
Three main primary data sources were evident: students (19 studies reported in 21 papers), academics and/or higher education experts (five studies in seven papers), and documents (six studies). Documents included study module outlines, websites, and university policy statements. In addition to their primary data source, some studies used additional sources. For example, Morais (2011) developed and validated a scale to measure global citizenship with the help of content experts and 288 students for confirmatory testing and 25 students for scale validation.
Student Sources
The largest group of studies (19/29, 55%) were those that used students as their primary source of data. More than 7,000 students contributed to these 19 studies (Anthony, 2014; Blake, 2015; Blum, 2013; Boni, 2012; Bourke, 2012; Braskamp, 2008; Brunell, 2013; Caruana, 2014; Chui, 2013; Denson, 2011; Fanghanel, 2011; Hendershot, 2009; Killick, 2013; Lilley, 2015a; Lorenzini, 2013; Miller, 2013; Morais, 2011; Parmenter, 2011; Wynveen, 2012).
Almost two thirds were undergraduates. Although often not well described, four different study recruitment strategies were evident. The studies involved the following:
First-year undergraduate students (Anthony, 2014; Bourke, 2012; Chui, 2013; Denson, 2011; Miller, 2013),
Students from a mix of disciplines (Blake, 2015; Blum, 2013; Braskamp, 2008; Chui, 2013),
Students in specific subjects (Boni, 2012; Brunell, 2013) or programs (Caruana, 2014; Lorenzini, 2013; Miller, 2013), and
Students in study abroad programs (Anthony, 2014; Fanghanel, 2011; Hendershot, 2009; Killick, 2013; Morais, 2011; Wynveen, 2012).
Academic and/or Higher Education Expert Sources
Five studies (Clifford, 2014; Hanson, 2012; Lilley, 2015b; Sperandio, 2010; Trede, 2013) published in seven papers (Clifford & Montgomery, 2014; Clifford & Montgomery, 2015; Hanson & McNeil, 2012; Lilley, Barker, & Harris, 2015b; Lilley, Barker, & Harris, 2016; Sperandio, 2010; Trede et al., 2013) were informed by academics or higher education experts. Three of these were conducted within a single institution using purposive sampling techniques (Hanson, 2012; Sperandio, 2010; Trede, 2013). Lilley (2015a) also used a purposive strategy to recruit an international sample, whereas Clifford (2014) used data gathered from discussion forums run in iterations of an online course available to academics from 10 countries.
Document Sources
Five studies relied on some form of documentation as their principal data source (Alfred, 2009; Battistoni, 2009; Crosbie, 2014; Khoo, 2011; Lorenzini, 2013; Tarrant, 2010). Approaches varied widely and included analysis of curriculum material within an institution (Crosbie, 2014; Tarrant, 2010) or conference proceedings (Alfred & Guo, 2012), comparison of policy statements and program material across institutions in different countries (Khoo, 2011), and description of best practice example websites (Battistoni, 2009).
Purpose and Study Design
Four broad primary purposes were identified among the included studies (see Table 2). These included four studies that described practices and policy (Alfred, 2012; Battistoni, 2009; Clifford, 2014; Khoo, 2012; Sperandio, 2010), 11 studies that examined perceptions and/or attitudes (Blake, 2015; Blum, 2012; Bourke, 2012; Chui, 2014; Denson, 2013; Hanson, 2012; Hendershott, 2009; Lilley, 2015a; Parmenter, 2011; Trede, 2013), five studies that developed theory or frameworks (Caruana, 2014; Crosbie, 2014; Fanghanel, 2011; Lilley, 2015b; Tarrant, 2010), and nine studies that assessed impact (Anthony, 2014; Boni, 2012; Braskamp, 2010; Brunell, 2013; Killick, 2013; Lorenzini, 2013; Miller, 2013; Morais, 2011; Wynveen, 2012).
Distribution of Included Studies by Primary Data Source and Primary Purpose.
All studies that described practice or developed theory used qualitative research methods, regardless of their primary data source. Studies with students as the primary data source used quantitative, qualitative, and mixed method approaches. This mix of study types was used to examine perceptions or assess impact.
Most qualitative studies were conducted as interviews (eight studies) or case studies (six studies), which commonly included focus groups. Cross-sectional studies (surveys) were the single most common form of data collection, and were mentioned in 16 studies (55% of all included studies). Surveys were the only method of data collection in 10 studies (34% of all included studies). Six studies used multiple forms of data collection.
In most cases, detail about study design was limited. However, at least three surveys were conducted online (Blum, 2013; Braskamp, 2008; Denson, 2011); there was at least one postal survey (Boni, 2012) and one study used classroom-based surveys (Chui, 2014).
Most data appear to have been collected at a single time point, although five studies used pre- and post-surveys (Boni, 2012; Brunell, 2013; Denson, 2013; Miller, 2013; Wynveen, 2012). In one interview study data were collected at three time points over the academic year (Killick, 2013).
The nine studies assessing impact included four that sought to quantify an aspect of global citizenship among students using specific instruments or subscales. Morais (2011) described the development and validation of the 30-item Global Citizenship Scale (GCS). Anthony, (2014) also used the GCS, but aimed to assess differences in global citizenship in terms of gender, discipline of study, or grade point average. Braskamp (2008) correlated, “I see myself as a global citizen,” with other items from the 46-item online “Global Perspectives Inventory” (GPI), which was designed to encourage student reflection on how they could make a difference to others’ lives. Chui (2013) assessed awareness of the impact of globalization in short “in-class” surveys that included an 11-item subscale, Attitudes Toward Globality and Cosmopolitan Culture. Parmenter (2011) sought to challenge top-down discourse by using an open-ended survey in nine languages asking students to use their own words to define global citizenship, and then to rate themselves against their own definition.
Content or discourse analyses were common in those studies using documents and/or websites as the primary data source, and these approaches were also reported by Clifford (2014) and in some mixed method approaches, such as Fanghanel (2011). Crosbie (2014) used Critical Participatory Action Research, described as an approach involving “insider reflection.”
Conceptual and Theoretical Framings
Most included studies did not nominate, or only briefly mentioned, theoretical underpinnings to guide their study design or explain findings (cf. Blum, 2013; Braskamp, 2009; Hanson, 2012). Bourke (2012), for example, referred to frameworks embedding global citizenship in higher education but did not explain how these connect with specific study goals.
A clearly described and organized theoretical framework (or conceptual model) appeared in 11 of the 29 studies in the review (38%). These researchers approached the study of global citizenship education in different ways, and for the most part, were motivated by different theories. Nevertheless, when the different aims of the 29 studies are considered together, an overarching theoretical framework for empirical study of global citizenship education emerged. This overarching framework covers three broad aspects: the attributes of global citizens, the outcomes or consequences of global citizenship education, and the pedagogical processes needed for global citizen education (see Figure 2). Attributes associated with global citizenship can be considered in terms of understanding, values, and actions, whereas outcomes can be identified in terms of skills or perceptions. Included studies tended to focus on different parts of this overarching theoretical framework.
Framework of conceptual and theoretical positioning of global citizenship education in published studies.
For example, the Morais (2011) study can be viewed as relating to three attributes of global citizens. The conceptual model developed in the study depicts global citizenship as comprising interrelated dimensions: global competence, social responsibility, and global civic engagement. Global competence, which could align with “understanding,” refers to the capacity to leverage cultural knowledge to “communicate and work effectively outside one’s environment” (Morais & Ogden, 2011, p. 448). Social responsibility is personal concern that relates to interdependence with—and social concern for—others. Global civic engagement reflects local behaviors that advance global agendas, and is expressed through “action.” The purpose of the GCS, developed and validated in the Morais (2011) study, was to assess the prevalence of these attributes among students.
In contrast, the Trede (2013) study focused on an understanding of global citizenship “as a conceptual value framework underpinned by social responsibility, global equality and human rights” (Trede, 2013, p. 443), and as such, covers attributes that correspond with “attitudes” and “understanding” and focuses on social skill development.
In four other studies (Battistoni, 2009; Brunell, 2013; Lorenzini, 2013; Sperandio 2010), the theoretical frameworks focus on civic engagement, which may be viewed as an “action” attribute of global citizenship. Civic engagement also motivated the Boni (2013) study, which cites Nussbaum to claim that civic engagement is grounded in cosmopolitan citizenship. This study set out to assess the impact of participation in a humanities international development curriculum on engineering students. Three Nussbaum abilities framed both the Boni (2013) and the Crosbie (2014) studies: critical thinking, cosmopolitan ability, and narrative imagination.
The Wynveen (2012) study, reported in three papers, applied a modified value belief norm (VBN) theory developed in earlier work (Tarrant, 2010), to explain how proenvironmental behavior is nurtured. Blake (2015), examined the perceptions of undergraduate students and tested the model of antecedents and outcomes of global citizenship identification (cited in Blake, 2015), where the term “antecedents” relates to one’s normative environment and to an individual’s global awareness. These qualities contribute to global citizenship identity, which according to the model, predict “prosocial outcomes such as intergroup empathy, valuing diversity, social justice, felt responsibility to act for betterment of the world and intergroup helping” (Blake et al., 2015, p. 98).
The focus of Lilley and colleagues in both Lilley (2015a) and Lilley (2015b) was the pedagogical process (see Figure 2), with a theoretical model developed with input from higher education experts and subsequently used to explore experiences of students’ mobility. According to this model, experiences that take the learner “out of comfort zone” expose them to “interpersonal relationships and encounters” and enable “broadened perspectives, accelerated maturity, cosmopolitan hospitality” and “widened horizons” (Lilley, 2015b, p. 234).
Discussion
This scoping review was initiated by a need to address practical challenges arising from a gap between university policies and academics’ understanding of the purpose of global citizenship and how to achieve it. The disparate nature of the literature around global citizenship education was confusing for those of us new to the field. Our response was to adapt methods used in the health sciences to map and describe what was known empirically about the topic. Essentially, we used a transparent process to integrate findings from diverse but interrelated studies, in an attempt to “make sense” of how others had approached this field. We restricted our review to peer-reviewed studies, as this (almost) universal measure of higher quality academic studies crosses disciplines. Our focus on empirical studies aligned with a desire to find “evidence” that evaluated practices in global citizenship education, another aspect borrowed from the health sciences.
Although the review process presented several challenges, three achievements are noteworthy. First, despite considerable heterogeneity across the 29 included studies, it was possible to synthesize information to describe how global citizenship education has been studied. We found research on global citizenship education can be grouped according to two main parameters: the primary data source and the study’s main purpose. Three primary data sources were evident: students, academics, and documents. Studies could also be categorized by four main purposes: to describe practice, to examine perceptions, to develop theory, or to assess impact. By categorizing studies using these parameters, associations not previously apparent could be observed (see Table 2). Nearly two thirds of all studies involved students as a primary data source; the majority were undergraduates. However, no studies with students as the primary data source described the practice of global citizenship education as its primary purpose. If our systematic approach to searching yielded no studies in this area, it is highly probable that others looking for examples in their discipline would find little to inform them, and contribute to connecting global citizenship with the discipline. The social context of a discipline is considered to be an influence on academic behaviors (Levin, 2013).
Mapping enabled us to identify studies that are potentially comparable and to identify gaps that future studies could explore (see Table 2). For example, assessing the impact of global citizenship education on academics could be a valuable area of study.
The second achievement of this review is the realization of an overarching framework to describe the different constructs of global citizenship education identified in the literature. For us, this insight was valuable, as our framework connected different understandings of global citizenship education and gave us broader understanding of this field. We looked for the theoretical foundations of the included studies, but the majority did not report any and little consensus was apparent in those 11 studies that did. Consequently, we relied on the stated purpose of the studies to build our framework, and in doing so saw how “cross talk” in the literature was causing confusion. We acknowledge that it is not uncommon for broad concepts, such as global citizenship education, to lack consensus, and that this can be a strength. It can open thinking and allow ideas to flourish. However, weaknesses can also be exposed, which can raise difficulties in implementing policies to groups not actively engaged in debates within the field. This latter scenario was our starting point when building our framework. We felt it was important to find a way to “make sense” of the different approaches evident in literature. For those outside any discipline, differences can be perceived as contradictions or tensions. This is particularly true when such differences are unacknowledged, resulting in inhibition of wider collaboration or pedagogical change. These consequences were recognized in a meta-ethnographic study of sustainability in higher education; the complexities of change processes can be undermined by lack of clarity and lack of transparency (Hoover & Harder, 2015).
We depicted global citizenship education as a “nested” model to show the relationships between individuals (global citizenship attributes), potential consequences (or outcomes), and the pedagogical processes used (see Figure 2). Our framework could be used to guide curriculum development or to more overtly describe global citizenship scholarship. For example, we propose three structured questions for researchers and educators to use:
The third achievement of this review was to collate the different research approaches to studying global citizenship education, including the different types of data sources and ways of recruiting student participants. We believe this forms a valuable resource for future scholars.
This scoping review pulls together studies from different universities and from different countries to build collective understanding of global citizenship education scholarship. However, there are limitations. Study inclusion was limited to English-language papers in peer-reviewed journals.
This scoping review provides a way to facilitate conversations with academics across disciplines about the journeys of university students to become global citizens. Transforming policy into practice in tertiary institutions occurs in a context of high interdependency and connectedness (Contandriopoulos, Lemire, Denis, & Tremblay, 2010), so there is a need to develop ways to discuss complex ideas. Building awareness among educators and researchers as to the diversity characterizing this field of scholarship may facilitate alignment of curriculum goals and institutional policies.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
We wish to acknowledge the research assistance of Ms. Shinead Borkovic and Ms. Rachel Soh.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was funded by a La Trobe University Research Focus Area Grant—Transforming Human Societies.