The global is more present than ever in our lives. We hear about global initiatives, global networks, and, not least, global challenges (of which the pandemic and climate emergency are but two examples). The notion itself has great admirers but also ardent critics. The former argue that no local issue can be understood outside of its global resonances; the latter think that a global focus takes away from local problems and local solutions. The term ‘glocal’ emerged as a compromise between these different communities of scholars and practitioners, as a notion that looks ‘both ways’ (Robertson, 1992). So why do we continue to talk about global citizens and global citizenship education – are we missing one side of the coin in doing so? In reality, the notion of a global citizen is paradoxical.

Being a citizen means being a citizen of somewhere and, indeed, since its historical emergence, citizenship has always been ‘local’ or, better said, regional and then national. And yet, the interconnected world of today and the interlinked nature of its problems consistently challenge national boundaries and nationalistic sentiments. Being a citizen of the world, nowadays, doesn’t have to replace or even take priority over other forms of citizenship but enables us to think beyond them. This is why education plays a crucial role here as one of the main tools to foster open-mindedness, inclusivity, participation, and supra-national forms of identity.

One of the key outcomes of global citizenship education, I argue here, connects to an increased potential for creative expression. The reason we talk less about creativity when it comes to global citizens (with a few exceptions, see Glăveanu, 2020) is because of a long legacy of thinking about creative processes as individual-based and reflective of what is unique about a person. While we do expect creative people to tackle global problems – and, actually, we often measure one’s creative success by its societal impact – we also tend to believe that the ‘source’ of creativity is anything but shared or social. As consistently argued in recent years (Glăveanu et al., 2020), such views misconstrue creativity as a phenomenon. Individuals create but they always do so based on experiences they have accumulated as members of one or more societies and cultures. We know that bi- or multilingualism is favorable for creative expression (Kharkhurin, 2012), that working within heterogeneous groups can increase the chance of reaching creative outcomes (McLeod, Lobel & Cox Jr, 1996), and that more diverse, multicultural societies have greater chances of developing a healthy creative class (Graif, 2018). The ‘global’ can harm creativity when it imposes a mindless repetition of what other people think or do in other parts of the world. But it is also the key to unlocking creative processes whenever it is accompanied by a sustained reflection about the perspectives, values, traditions and beliefs of other groups and communities. Successful global citizenship education, then, necessarily fosters creativity because of its engagement with difference, multiplicity, and dialogue.

But what exactly constitutes successful global citizenship education and how can we explicitly frame this kind of education as not only creative in and of itself but employed for ‘creativity’? In order to achieve this, we need to first raise the awareness of educators and students alike about the importance of creativity for both global and local issues. More than this, we need to challenge the myth of the lone genius (Montuori & Purser, 1995) and acknowledge the collaborative nature of creating with and for others. Every creative outcome is, ultimately, a co-creation, being born out of a dialogue between our knowledge and views and the knowledge and views of others. This reframing creates a natural bridge towards the concern for problems faced by other people in the world and for our own role in creating as well as solving these problems.

Second, those who educate for global citizenship would do well to foster skills and mindsets that underpin both creativity and global engagement. Key among them are empathy, wonder, and perspective-taking. Through empathy, we connect to the lived experience of others; through wonder, we become motivated to understand this experience and make sense of it; through perspective-taking, we can reflect on our own experience through the lens of other people. Each of these cultivate a deeper reflection on what makes us similar and different and a desire to understand and collaborate creatively with people close and far.

Finally, an explicit focus on creativity in global citizenship education would help construct a view of students and teachers as agentic, imaginative beings capable of taking ownership of their own education and responsibility for the world they live in. Such deep and constructive engagement cannot succeed outside of educating creative global citizens. The success of ‘global citizenship education and of ‘education for creativity’ largely depend on each other.

How Can Global Citizenship Education Foster Creativity?

Being a citizen means being a citizen of somewhere and, indeed, since its historical emergence, citizenship has always been ‘local’ or, better said, regional and then national. And yet, the interconnected world of today and the interlinked nature of its problems consistently challenge national boundaries and nationalistic sentiments.

How Can Global Citizenship Education Foster Creativity?

An explicit focus on creativity in global citizenship education would help construct a view of students and teachers as agentic, imaginative beings capable of taking ownership of their own education and responsibility for the world they live in.

Also read

How Can We Mainstream and Advance Global Citizenship Education in Formal  Education Systems?
Editor’s Note

How Can We Mainstream and Advance Global Citizenship Education in Formal Education Systems?

For any school or university to realize the transformative potential of GCED to the fullest, one has to move beyond looking at the implementation of GCED as yet another subject in the curricular framework but has to adopt an integrated institution-wide contextual approach that involves all stakeholders including the wider community.

Aaryan Salman

‘Education for Homeland Earth’ Framework to Mainstream Global Citizenship Education – The Austrian Experience
Opinion

‘Education for Homeland Earth’ Framework to Mainstream Global Citizenship Education – The Austrian Experience

Education for Homeland Earth is a formula for a transformative, postcolonial, socially critical, ecologically enlightened Global Citizenship Education (GCED). The formula comes from the title of a book written by the French philosopher Edgar Morin and Anne Brigitte Kern in the 1990s.

Prof. Werner Wintersteiner

Pathways to Mainstream and Advance the Concept of Global Citizenship Education in the Arab World
Opinion

Pathways to Mainstream and Advance the Concept of Global Citizenship Education in the Arab World

The importance of this study is manifested by events that have highlighted deteriorating human conditions, particularly in what we are witnessing in third world countries including the Arab world, which is facing a lot of setbacks at several levels.

Prof. Amani G. Jarrar

This article is featured in the Issue
03
titled
Mainstreaming and Advancing Global Citizenship Education
of the .ed Magazine.

Authored by

References:

  1. Glăveanu, V. P. (2020). Creativity and global citizenship education. In A. Akkari, K. Maleq & S. Tawil (Eds.), Global citizenship education: Critical and international perspectives (pp. 191-202). Cham: Springer.
  2. Glăveanu, V. P., Hanchett Hanson, M., Baer, J., Barbot, B., Clapp, E., Corazza, G. E., Hennessey, B., Karwowski, M., Kaufman, J., Lebuda, I., Lubart, T., Montuori, A., Ness, I., Plucker, J., Reiter-Palmon, R., Sierra, Z., Simonton, D. K., Souza Neves, M., Sternberg, R. (2020). Advancing Creativity Theory and Research: A Sociocultural Manifesto. Journal of Creative Behavior, 54(3), 741-745. Open access from: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jocb.395
  3. Graif, C. (2018). Neighborhood diversity and the rise of artist hotspots: Exploring the creative class thesis through a neighborhood change lens. City & Community, 17(3), 754-787.
  4. Kharkhurin, A. V. (2012). Multilingualism and creativity. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
  5. McLeod, P. L., Lobel, S. A., & Cox Jr, T. H. (1996). Ethnic diversity and creativity in small groups. Small Group Research, 27(2), 248-264.
  6. Montuori, A., & Purser, R. E. (1995). Deconstructing the lone genius myth: Toward a contextual view of creativity. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 35(3), 69-112.
  7. Robertson, R. (1992). Globalization: Social theory and global culture. London: Sage.
0%
100%
Enjoy this post? Share it!