On the politically divided island of Cyprus, Northern (Turkish) and Southern (Greek) researchers have suggested that the majority of the textbooks play a negative role in promoting global citizenship (Silman & Caglar, 2001). For example, history textbooks in Cyprus highlight ethnic differences between two communities, which Latif (2017) argues creates isolation by “othering” each community. On the other hand, Papadakis (2008) explains that history education has “a shift from political and diplomatic history towards social, cultural and economic history.” (p.21). In contrast to the extensive scholarship about history education in Cyprus, limited research highlights the global citizenship education taught through social studies textbooks. Silman and Caglar (2011) suggest that, from an early age, citizens should be educated about global citizenship to develop shared values against othering different communities and to promote critical thinking related to issues in Cyprus and around the world. 

There are contradictions among standard definitions of “global citizenship.” For instance, according to Oxfam, a “global citizen [is] someone aware of the wider world and has a sense of their role as a world citizen” (Brigham in Oxfam, 2011). On the other hand, the Atlantic Council for International Cooperation explains it as “a way of seeing social justice, equity, other people’s reality, diversity, inter-connectedness, and the way that people can make a difference” (in Brigham, 2011). In addition, Faulks (2006) highlights how “citizenship education has long raised concerns about its potential to indoctrinate pupils, to forge a national identity and thus to override minority groups’ cultures, values, and uniqueness” (p.60). These different definitions of global citizenship highlight the challenges in developing a common conceptualization.

According to Gaudelli (2009), there is no single definition of “global citizenship” because it has changed meaning due to globalization. Globalization brought changes that created government bodies like the European Union Parliament, the codification of international human rights laws, global trade policies, etc. These bodies then unified different nations under an umbrella organization, which again changed the idea of a global citizen (Gaudelli, 2009). Gaudelli (2009) suggests that in the past, a citizen was defined as someone who belonged to a particular nation-state, meaning a citizen had a strong sense of national identity, but this shifted after these organizations appeared. Now, citizens can be born in a nation-state but prefer to call themselves world citizens. Thus, global citizenship does not have a single definition. Instead, there are various perspectives to explain it. Some of the definitions can be similar to others, but some of them can contradict or are in tension with each other. Gaudelli (2009) warns through an explanation that “global citizenship, as such, is in danger of becoming yet another slogan on a heap of others, perhaps awaiting a post-modern declaration of death by ambiguity and stridency” (p. 69). This danger exists because some organizations are using the term “global citizenship” as a tool to sell themselves and look trendy on the market.

Due to the research gap in the Northern Cyprus social studies textbooks, I will examine the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus’ middle school social studies textbooks (sixth grade, seventh grade first semester, and seventh grade second semester). My research question is “how is global citizenship conceptualized and addressed in the middle school social studies textbooks in North Cyprus?” With this research question, I aim to understand how textbooks address global citizenship in the North Cyprus' social studies textbooks. Nevertheless, because it is hard to define global citizenship with a single perspective, in this research I utilize a more general definition of global citizenship since my study’s goal is to understand how the textbooks conceptualize and address global citizenship.

I used qualitative content analysis to analyze the meaning of the texts about global citizenship in the three-middle school social studies textbooks from Northern Cyprus. All of the textbooks are written and produced by the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) government. To answer my research question, I inductively coded the texts in the textbooks by using the MAXQDA software program. Because I speak Turkish fluently, I did not translate the textbooks into English. For this study, I chose to use qualitative content analysis because I was interested in investigating the meanings of texts to understand how they conceptualize and address global citizenship. Since my research question focuses on the content of social studies textbooks, it requires systematic qualitative descriptions of the textbooks’ content, and aims to further an understanding of global citizenship, qualitative content analysis was the suitable method for my study.

In this paper, I analyze the middle school social studies textbooks to understand how they conceptualize and address global citizenship? This study was carried out to address the gap in this research area in Northern Cyprus. Wade (1993) argues that such strong qualitative content analysis enables textbook reform and can advance teaching methods by helping instructors become more aware of a textbook’s disadvantages. Therefore, on the dived island of Cyprus, if we know what is missing in the textbooks, we may be able to build the curriculum to fill these gaps. Then, specifically in this case, we can have a curriculum that supports the global citizenship in the social studies textbooks.

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