Within the EU global citizenship education (GCE) is present in almost 30 countries (European Development Education Monitoring Report “DE Watch” 2010). In Polish case, GCE was the response to the EU policy and the so-called multistakeholder process led to the signing up of an agreement between key actors: Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Education and Zagranica Group (an umbrella organization gathering over 60 non-governmental organizations) (Jasikowska & Witkowski 2012) thanks to which GCE became a  part of formal education system. Until now, GCE is a kind of a response to globalized, uncertain, multicultural and uneven contemporary world. In Polish homogenous society case (in terms of ethnicity, religion, race, etc.) GCE is a practical tool for teachers and pupils to meet this complex world. A lot have been done at all ISCED levels in order to promote global citizenship by both state and non state actors (Jasikowska, Pająk-Ważna, Klarenbach 2015).

Having said that, it seem to be a burning issue of what is going to happen with GCE in Polish schools after the election of the conservative rightwing party, which after a very short time of being in power has to explain the European Commission what is going on in Poland in terms of democratic deficit? As far as education is concerned, the ruling party is planning to introduce changes into the curriculum and put an emphasis on the so called patriotic education understood as contradictory to global citizenship education, at all ISCED levels. We claim that such opposition is false and that the planned changes may destroy opportunities brought into formal education by the GCE, such us sense of global outlook, critical reflection and dialogue or assumption that all knowledge is partial and comes from a context (Andreotti 2011) essential in every democratic contemporary society.

The key question for us is: “(…) whose knowledge is to be selected as legitimate of official knowledge (…) who should be deeply involved in the entire process of such selection and organization of knowledge (…)” (Apple 2014: XVI). Can the state represented by the ruling party overshadow other parties and establish only one view that is legitimized in the school context? As we see it, the teachers are key actors in the entire complex process of establishing official knowledge with respect to the future of GCE in Poland. To be or not to be of GCE in Polish schools depends on teachers who negotiate their own worldviews, professionalism and either narrow or extend the room which gives them the curriculum. Drawing substantially from our research done in 2014 we try to present the complexities of teachers attitudes to the GCE (ranging from hostile to enthusiastic) and, to answer the question to what extent the conservative turn in Polish schools is likely to happen?

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