Abstract
Development education has a long and well-established trajectory in terms of initiatives promoted by international organizations, national governments and civil associations, accompanied by a growing awareness of the significance of global issues. Nevertheless, an analysis of the education policy reflected in the official Spanish and English curricula supports what Bourn (2015) has described as the current decline in development education. A comparative analysis of these curricula reveals interesting similarities and suggests a need for initiatives where teachers and schools take the lead in developing educational practice committed to prepare students for global citizenship. Our research project, entitled Investigating the Global Dimension of Development Education: A Pilot Study in a Galician School, was largely inspired by the work of the Global Learning Programme – England, in supporting collaborative networks to develop and implement effective teaching practices related to global issues. This participatory action research project aimed to design and put into practice a school-wide interdisciplinary teaching plan to embed development education into everyday school practice, where the teachers served as the principle designers and developers of the educational proposals. We include a section of this teaching plan to demonstrate that, despite the limited policy support, there are possibilities for incorporating development education into the existing curriculum.
Highlights
This article is based on a research project financed by the Spanish Galician government
The project is based on a participatory action research (PAR) approach, a collaborative methodology that aims to support school-based teachers in infusing the school curriculum with content and objectives relating to the global dimension
If we look at structural aspects, such as the introduction of separate professional versus academic tracking in the fourth year, a heavier disciplinary content and an increasing emphasis on instrumental competencies, we might question the sincerity of much of the discourse related to development education (DE) in the new curriculum
Summary
This article is based on a research project financed by the Spanish Galician (autonomous) government. The idea was to show that this was possible, even in the relatively unsupportive current Spanish curricular context, with a particular emphasis on incorporating aspects of DE that, as we have seen, are especially under-represented For this reason, we were especially interested in establishing global–local connections, so that, starting with local issues, students might arrive at a global perspective that reveals the relations between students’ own lives and global politics and economy, raising consciousness and inspiring action aimed at addressing social injustices. We were aware of the need to use active and participative methodologies that provide opportunities to reflect on practice, as pointed out by de Paz Abril (2011) In this sense, we hoped to exemplify teaching philosophies that, while mentioned in the preamble of the current Spanish national educational law, fail to manifest themselves in structure and curricular content that reflect critical perspectives
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
