What is Global Education?
Global Education analyses, debates and creates long-term solutions to social and environmental problems.
Solutions that...
reduce poverty
connect social and environmental issues locally and globally
affirm and celebrate cultural diversity
involve everyone
and seek non-violent resolutions to conflict.
Global Education: yesterday and today
In the 1960's development education in the West was concerned with raising awareness of poverty in the "Third World". Aid organisations, church groups and many concerned individuals hoped such education would build political support for increasing the amount of overseas aid to countries in Africa, Asia and in Latin America.
Today, development education cuts much deeper. It is now called global education and it emphasises the interdependence of our world - the links that exist between environmental degradation, poverty, human rights and the economic and political structures here in Australia and internationally. It stresses the need for economic, political and social change in all societies, to create a just, peaceful and sustainable world.
Global Education is about...
- Global concerns
Global Education is about recognising that we live in an interdependent world. It aims to develop an understanding of the interacting factors that cause poverty, injustice, inhumanity, conflict and environmental abuse in our own country and internationally.
- Relationships of power
Global Education [analyses how power is exercised locally and globally, and provides strategies for empowering individuals and communities]. It promotes inquiry into prejudice and discrimination, such as racism and sexism.
- Critical awareness
Global education fosters critical awareness of our own and other societies and cultures. It is a search for alternative views, experiences and methods that acknowledge equality of people within and between nations.
- Participation
Global education develops the skills, values and attitudes that lead to a commitment to act for change. It encourages action to preserve and fairly distribute the earth's resources and to create a more just society, locally and globally.
Margaret Calder and Roger Smith, A Better World for All; Development Education
in the Classroom, Canberra, AGPS, 1991 (Book 1, Teacher's Notes, p.
17)
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