Education for Global Citizenship at Universities Potentialities of Formal and Informal Learning Spaces to Foster Cosmopolitanism

• Published in: Journal of studies in international education Vol. 21; no. 1; pp. 22 - 38
• Main Authors: Boni, Alejandra, Calabuig, Carola
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.02.2017
• Subjects: Citizen participation; Citizenship Education; College Students; Cosmopolitanism; Critical Thinking; Educational Cooperation; Elective Courses; Foreign Countries; Globalisierung; Guidelines; Higher education; Hochschulbildung; Informal Education; International Cooperation; Internationalisierung; Internship Programs; Kooperation; Learning; Mobilität; Moral education; Personal Autonomy; Program Descriptions; Semi Structured Interviews; Spanien; Student; Student Attitudes; Student Mobility; Student Organizations; University graduates; Wettbewerb; Wissenschaftliches Personal; South America; Spain; mobility of students and academic staff; globalization and international higher education; cooperation and competition; international cooperation in higher education; internationalization of higher education
• ISSN: 1552-7808; 1028-3153; 1552-7808
• DOI: 10.1177/1028315315602926

This article explores how three different learning spaces could be appropriate for developing a sense of global citizenship among university students. We draw on an interview study conducted at the Universitat Politècnica of Valencia (UPV) between 2010 and 2012. The spaces analyzed were two electives devoted to international cooperation, a mobility program that took place mainly in Latin American countries and a student-led university group. We examined the three spaces in terms of expansion of capabilities and agency related to global citizenship and cosmopolitanism using a conceptual framework that synthesizes Nussbaum's and Sen's capability approach with Delanty's critical cosmopolitanism to explore the limits and potentialities of those three spaces. Although the exploratory character of our study cannot allow us to generalize our findings, what we can affirm is each of these areas has the potentiality to enhance global citizenship but with nuances, differences, and complementarities. The electives appear to be good spaces for the critical learning capability, while international mobility (Meridies) is a strong enabler for narrative imagination capabilities. Students belonging to Mueve (student led group) showed elements of these capabilities plus a very strong emphasis on agency, which does not occur in the other two learning spaces. Critical cosmopolitan process happened both in Mueve and Meridies. In the student-led group, this cosmopolitan process begins with the local, while in the internships it was the global encounter that initiates a cosmopolitan reflection. (HoF/text adopted).