Global competence and teacher education programmes. A European perspective

Davide Parmigiani,Sarah-Louise Jones,Irma Kunnari,Elisabetta Nicchia

doi:10.1080/2331186x.2021.2022996

Davide Parmigiani, Sarah-Louise Jones + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1080/2331186x.2021.2022996

Copy DOI

Abstract

Global competence is an increasingly important disposition for today’s society. Prospective teachers will have to be able to teach effectively in multicultural classrooms as well as develop dispositions of global competence in their future students. This pilot study was aimed at investigating what aspects of global competence should be integrated into initial teacher education programmes. Twenty-four teacher educators from fifteen European countries were involved in a qualitative study to underscore the topics, the contexts, the actors and the methodologies that can support the integration of global competence into programmes for preservice teachers. The findings indicate that global competence is a multidimensional concept associated with aspects directly related with the teaching profession such as cooperation, inclusion, social engagement, multicultural dialogue. The results also identify the methods and the contexts for an educational pathway for preservice teachers where the idea of global competence can emerge more easily.

Highlights

Open any newspaper today and you will find a multiplicity of headlines that demonstrate the smallness of our planet
The third section was focused on the specific aspects that can support the integration of global competence concepts into Initial Teacher Education Programmes (ITEPs)
The Organizational category concerns the relationship among the ITEP’s structure, key people within the organization and the notion of global competence (GC). These sub-categories show that the concept of GC should be included more explicitly into the ITEPs since the experts see an essential accordance between the GC issues and the ITEP’s activities

Summary

Introduction

Open any newspaper today and you will find a multiplicity of headlines that demonstrate the smallness of our planet. The new geographical, economic, political and social connectedness of our worlds that has emerged largely through advances in technology (Schwab, 2016), has meant that we interact with people whose life experiences and backgrounds can be very different from our own. How do we educate for this new world? Momtpoint-Galliard (2015) argues that “our vision of education is tied to our vision of society” (Momtpoint-Galliard, 2015:105). We can argue that we need to reframe both the process and content of education so that it is fit for the modern world. The model of educating our students, to provide a literate workforce for the industrial age and manufacturing empires is no longer relevant for living or working in a complex global society (Dede, 2010; Facer, 2011; Takayama, 2013)

Methods

Discussion

Conclusion