Our World Mission

During the past year, Our World conducted a review of exemplary secondary school teaching and learning materials that relate to the domain of global citizenship education. We asked experts, in fields such as peace education and human rights education, to identify and analyze examples of outstanding teaching and learning materials and conceptual articles/textbooks that describe the state-of-the-art in their field. We then held two mini-conferences, one in Europe and one in North America, to discuss the implications of the reviews for building the field of global citizenship education.

Conference participants in both Europe and North America came to the same conclusions. The materials that were reviewed tended to be focused on one dimension of the larger field of global citizenship education. They offered valuable resources and perspectives, but they didn't fully represent the depth and breadth of a "domain." Secondly, we found that interesting and worthwhile materials had been developed in fields such as peace education and human rights education, but that many of these materials failed to address the important questions and issues of global citizenship education that relate to (a) determining the roles and responsibilities of people and nations as members of a global community; and (b) learning how to utilize the experience and wisdom of different regions of the world to solve global problems. Virtually all materials reviewed also lacked a historical dimension that would assist students in exploring what the past has taught us about solving current global issues.

To read about characteristics of Global Citizenship Education, please click here.