Session Information
30 SES 17 A, Education at the Crossroads
Symposium
Contribution
Since 2002 when European Union published the Maastricht Declaration on global education, there has been a significant increase in research publications of global education, including global citizenship skills and global learning. This paper presents findings of a thematic review of global education research in Finland, published between years 2007 and 2017. The analyzed research publications concern Finnish education, from early childhood education to primary and secondary level education, and teacher education (university level educational sciences). The key themes and findings are discussed in the light of previous international meta-analyses of global education and global citizenship education research (Oxley & Morris, 2013; Goren & Yemeni, 2017). The aim is to identify contributions of the research findings on how global education is integrated in education in Finland and what gaps in knowledge have been identified. The main question addressed is: what key themes and findings characterize Finnish research in global education? The review shows that of the five areas or dimensions of global education as defined by the Maastricht Declaration, there has been more research in intercultural education (and related approaches) and education for sustainable development than in development education, human rights education and education for peace and conflict prevention. In addition, we found research that approaches global education holistically as a cross-cutting theme. Overall, the review shows how research in Finland follows European and international trends yet maintains a critical stance to identify issues related to its specific sociopolitical contexts and aims to have a holistic view of education development. Recently in Europe, global learning has gained research attention with a focus on learning understood widely (Bourn 2018; Scheunpflug & Mehren 2016), while several organizations (including Brookings Institute and UNESCO; International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement; OECD) have attempted to develop instruments to measure global competencies and global citizenship skills. In Finland, assessment of the global competencies is an emerging topic though there seems to be more emphasis on the holistic eco-social approach aiming to the system-level development of the whole school community. This holistic approach offers a frame for integrating the five dimensions in education which can be interpreted as an attempt to continue the Finnish and Nordic tradition to value education as the collective, social and global common good. Keywords: global education; thematic review; research; Finland
References
Bourn D. (2018). A Conceptual Framework for Global Skills. In: Bourn, D. (ed.) Understanding Global Skills for 21st Century Professions, 111-132, Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Goren, H. & Yemini, M. (2017). Global citizenship education redefined – A systematic review of empirical studies on global citizenship education. International Journal of Educational Research, 82: 170-183. Oxley, L. & Morris, P. (2013). Global Citizenship: A Typology for Distinguishing its Multiple Conceptions. British Journal of Educational Studies, 61(3): 301-325. Scheunpflug, A. & Mehren, R. (2016). What Do We Know about Global Learning and What Do We Need to Find Out? In H. Hartmeyer & L. Wegimont (eds.) Global Education in Europe Revisited, 205-225. Waxmann: Münster.
Search the ECER Programme
- Search for keywords and phrases in "Text Search"
- Restrict in which part of the abstracts to search in "Where to search"
- Search for authors and in the respective field.
- For planning your conference attendance you may want to use the conference app, which will be issued some weeks before the conference
- If you are a session chair, best look up your chairing duties in the conference system (Conftool) or the app.