Abstract
This article presents a critical policy overview of inclusive education and global citizenship education (GCED) and offers two innovative childhood education practices that support inclusion of children with disabilities through dimensions of physical and conceptual access, both noted implementation barriers to inclusive education across the globe. The first section summarizes global human rights and education initiatives that support GCED through access for children with disabilities in education and in societies. This section addresses questions of how inclusion plays a central role to the advancement of GCED, summarizing major global policy advances to inclusion, and highlighting how advancement of inclusive childhood education supports GCED. This article concludes with two innovative childhood education practices, global competence and critical literacy, which offer critical potential to contribute to GCED through conceptual and physical dimensions of access, and ultimately promote inclusive education.
Highlights
Global citizenship education (GSED) has gained prominence among education, human rights, and public policy stakeholders, as evident from its place among the three priorities of the United Nations Global Education First Initiative (UNESCO, 2014)
Individuals with disabilities comprise 15% of the total population, with disproportional numbers excluded from education (UNESCO estimates that children with disabilities account for 30% of children worldwide excluded from education; UNESCO, 2017a)
Innovative childhood education practices that support inclusion are imperative for social justice education and for the progress of education to focus on meaningful human rights, relationships, and aspects of humanity such as creativity
Summary
Global citizenship education (GSED) has gained prominence among education, human rights, and public policy stakeholders, as evident from its place among the three priorities of the United Nations Global Education First Initiative (UNESCO, 2014). Current global childhood education policy (e.g., SDG 4, READ) is intended to support inclusion of children with disabilities through access (conceptual and physical dimensions), reflecting previous developments, in which the United Nations increasingly has specified inclusion through conceptual and physical dimensions of access, progress, and participation for children with disabilities in education and social programs; these procedures do not address the critical inquiry that education and schools must engage the community in to meaningfully engage and build shared and equitable understandings and relationships. (promoting) in the spirit of international cooperation, the exchange of appropriate information in the field of preventive health care and of medical, psychological, and functional treatment of disabled children, including dissemination of and access to information concerning methods of rehabilitation, education and vocational services, with the aim of enabling States Parties to improve their capabilities and skills and to widen their experience in these areas In this regard, particular account shall be taken of the needs of developing countries (CRC, 2002, Article 23). SDG 4 aims to promote global citizenry and reflects previous goals for inclusion of children with disabilities in education and in societies
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