The purpose of this paper is to explore the role and possibilities of critical Global Citizenship Education (GCE) in attending to neglected aspects of inclusion for migrant students in national educational settings. Global migration, and most recently rising numbers of people seeking refuge in the global North, has not only changed the cultural demographics of education, but is also raising questions concerning inclusion, citizenship and belonging within the space of schooling. Despite most national education systems in Europe maintaining to work according to inclusive educational frameworks and policies, migrant students find themselves only shallowly included and often lack opportunities for meaningful participation. A major focus has been placed on students acquiring the “right” kind of knowledge and skills by focusing on the majority language as the single most important vehicle of inclusion. Overemphasizing standardized skills, often related to discourse on national or global competitiveness, undermines other important aspects of education, such as civic and social concerns. Recent reports indicate that both immigrant and refugee students face multiple barriers when it comes to educational and social inclusion across European countries, reflected in lower achievement, higher drop-out rates, and lower sense of well-being within schools, compared to native students. Global social policies in line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have amplified the significance of global citizenship in relation to realizing the goal of inclusive and equitable education.

While the general notion of GCE revolves around it being a value-based response to many of the globalizing processes affecting young people across the world, it is nevertheless a concept understood differently by different stakeholders, depending largely on the purpose of those who define it. Within the literature, GCE is commonly associated with either liberal multicultural perspectives focusing on shared values and human rights or neo-liberal, human capital based approaches focusing on global skills and competitiveness. Both have been criticized for being "soft" approaches to GCE by scholars who point out the need for a critical and relational understanding for example by focusing on the historical, and socio-cultural aspects of citizenship, education, and migration. In this paper we develop further the emerging critical scholarship on GCE by drawing on recent scholarly work on critical GCE along with related theoretical work of Hannah Arendt and John Dewey as a way of deepening our understanding of the concept itself and its relevance within national education systems today. Responding to the often-mentioned gap between critical ideological notions of GCE and practical approaches within education, we furthermore provide examples of how critical GCE can be reflected through visual and participatory pedagogical practices developed within the context of a comparative research project focusing on Irregular Processes of Inclusion and Citizenship (I-PIC) in selected upper-secondary schools in Iceland, Norway, and the UK.

The paper aims to explore the role and possibilities of GCE to offer more inclusive educational responses to migrant and refugee students within national educational settings. Our methodology consists of philosophical and theoretical discussion concerning the various interrelated, yet often contradictory, approaches to GCE and their implications for migrant and refugee youth. We deepen our analysis by engaging with key theoretical concepts from Dewey and Arendt, including the notion of visiting as a way of repositioning oneself when responding to diversity and difference. The paper also seeks to offer practical examples of how GCE can be reflected through visual and participatory pedagogical practices that were developed in collaboration with teachers and researchers as a part of a multiple-case study on the Irregular Processes of Inclusion and Citizenship of migrant students in Iceland, Norway, and the UK.

In the paper we offer an account of how different yet interrelated approaches to GCE have different implications for migrant and refugee youth within national educational settings. By adding a theoretical and conceptual analysis we propose a new model of GCE where criticality is given a fundamental role in terms of approach, unlike previous models where criticality is often viewed as one dimension amongst others. We furthermore emphasize the importance of viewing GCE not only on the basis of different dimensions as many scholars do but also as a process operating at different but interrelated scales, namely: personal, local, national, and global. The practical examples offered in the paper are clearly linked to the theoretical discussion through the metaphor of teachers becoming visitors in their students’ lives. By offering such examples we attend to the often-mentioned gap of critical ideological notions of GCE and practical approaches. The presented educational practices are intended for policy makers and practitioners alike. They provide suggestions on how to create educational settings where migrant and refugee youth play an important part in generating and sharing diverse world views and perspectives on citizenship, inclusion and participation through their visual and narrative accounts.

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