Abstract
Considering discursive transitions in development education, we discuss the main findings of a qualitative study with practitioners in Portuguese development non-governmental organizations, based on semi-structured in-depth interviews. Our goal was to understand practitioners' accounts of their field of action and the discursive transition between development and (global) citizenship. The research provides new information about the Portuguese situation and contributes to the reconceptualization debate. The analysis reinforces the complexity of the field, connected to its focus on processes, and its highly organic, personal and multidimensional nature. It also depicts a nuanced understanding of terms and an increasing identification with global citizenship education as an umbrella term for practitioners' action and an alternative to the North–South and development narratives attributed to development education.
Highlights
In Portugal, as in other European countries, development education is facing a discursive transition from the domain of development to citizenship education
Diverse terminologies are in use, such as global education and global citizenship education, but for the purposes of this work, whenever references are made to the field in general, the term ‘development education’ is used, regardless of original terminology
This paper focuses on the way these practitioners conceived development education in the scope of NGDOs, bearing in mind the discursive transition to global citizenship education, encompassing the following discussions: (1) how practitioners define what they do in this field, regardless of the terminology used; (2) perceptions of the terminological shift; (3) substantial differences between terms; and (4) preferred terminology
Summary
In Portugal, as in other European countries, development education is facing a discursive transition from the domain of development to (global) citizenship education. There is an unquestionable tension on the table, which is certainly having an impact on the conceptual debate and preventing it from going further: in Portugal, as in the majority of European countries, if this disconnection from aid was to become a reality today, in practical terms this would make NGDOs’ work in this field unviable, as the main source of financing is development-related (O’Loughlin and Wegimont, 2014) We find it significant that, despite being aware of such an implication, the majority of practitioners positioned themselves as pro-global citizenship education. It might be important to invest in understanding practitioners’ reflexive and knowledge production processes, as well as their representations on and options towards coherence – so extensively mentioned, despite not being asked about in our study
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