This symposium will discuss key issues and debates within research on global education and global citizenship education and their relevance to the debates on sustainablity education. The symposium will look particularly at questions of evidence, the role of empirical research in investigating distinctive pedagogical approaches both in formal and non-formal education. Globalisation has resulted in many communities around the world feeling disempowered. The symposium will also explore the extent to which academic research could contribute to policy making that addresses how learners can be equipped with the knowledge and skills to address the challenges of globalisation and the value of the term global citizenship. It will do this by investigating current methods and approaches within research on global (citizenship) education and their relevance and connections to sustainablity education.

While there have been well-known academics involved in the field of global education for many years including in North America Robert Hanvey, Merry Merryfield, Toni Kirkwood-Tucker and Graham and in Europe in David Selby and David Hicks, it is an area that has had few major empirically based research studies compared to say environmental education. The growth in interest in this field in Europe led particularly by Annette Scheunpflug in Germany, Rauni Rasanen in Finland and Manuela Mesa has over the past decade helped to change this culture (see Bourn, 2015). Vanessa 1Andreotti (2011) originally from Brazil, but now located in Canada, has also been a major influence through her work on GCE. In the UK, the work of the Development Education Research Centre has also helped to put research on the agenda of policy-makers and practitioners.

There has also been increasing interest in recent years in linking more closely the themes of global citizenship to education for sustainability.

The field of global citizenship has also benefited from the emergence of numerous academic journals that focus exclusively on global education and related areas such as development and global citizenship education which have included articles on sustainability including the importance of the Sustainable Development Goals.  

As papers in this symposium will demonstrate, the need for research and evidence to demonstrate its effectiveness, importance and impact remains central to progressing global education. It is an area, because of the themes it addresses, of being susceptible to changes in political priorities. Global education, because it is an educational field that challenges many of the neoliberal priorities within education, can be open to ideological and political attacks. A consequence of this has been the constant changes in funding opportunities depending upon who was in political power at the time.

The papers presented here all come from members of the Academic Network of Global Education Researchers (ANGEL)  which is a growing network with over 600 members. This network demonstrates the recent growth in interest in the field if global citizenship education and its relevance to education for sustainability.

Annette Scheunpflug outlines the importance of evidence and research to promote the value and importance of GE and learning to broader educational discourse and provision.

Karen Pashby and Louise Sund review research on sustainability education and global citizenship and the continued usage of ‘us’ meaning the Global North and ‘them’ the Global South. It then outlines evidence from research with teachers in three countries that poses a different way of looking at global issues

Massimiliano Tarozzi then reviews the specific contribution of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to the development of policies across Europe.

Finally Cathryn MacCallum reviews evidence from her research on global learning in Zanzibar.

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