Challenges and Opportunities: Resocialization as a Framework for Global Citizenship Education

Abstract

Despite its conceptual and terminological vagueness, global citizenship is gradually acknowledged as one of the systemic models of citizenship. However, educators are still in search of curricular frameworks and methodological practices that adequately apply to global citizenship education. Resocialization framework can serve as both theoretical and applied tools in global citizenship education: if we all are already global citizens by the virtue of birth, by our existential status, then the task of global citizenship education is to challenge traditional nation-oriented citizenship models and to resocialize children by making them aware of their global citizen status. This educational framework is based on the principle that resociolization does not lead to a rejection of previous practices and established values, rather it offers a balance to the socialization experience and expands the boundaries of individual rights, freedoms, and responsibilities. This chapter describes major points of global citizenship debates in education and introduces three principal theories that support resocialization framework of global citizenship education. The chapter concludes that resocialization is not a panacea in teaching global citizenship but one of many possible frameworks that schools and individual teachers can utilize in their practices.