Perception and positionality: Adult refugee and migrant students' understandings of the global citizen identity in British society

Abstract

In an increasingly globalized world there is continued debate within educational research about the existence and identity of the global citizen. This article contributes to this exploration by locating the debate within the further education (FE) and skills sector. It is based on the author's MA dissertation and examines the understandings of the global citizen identity as held by adult students from refugee and migrant backgrounds at a large FE college in London. It also investigates the extent to which these students perceive themselves as global citizens in British society. A qualitative study is used to explore these perspectives through student focus groups and the theme of positionality. This article argues that the global citizen identity is largely understood as an aspirational identity that is implicated with orientations of power and that there is an overall absence of a critical approach in relation to understandings of the global citizen identity. Increased criticality is therefore essential in enabling an exploration of this identity as necessarily multifaceted and complex.