This symposium aims to explore the state of the art of research in Global Education and Learning (GEL) in current Europe. Drawing on data collected from the five editions of the Multilingual Global Education Digest, the symposium will look particularly at the contribution of literature other than English, namely Finnish, Portuguese and Italian, discussing these three cases in the framework of European academic production in GEL and related issues.

In the last decade, the focus on the global dimension in education has grown both in the educational policies of many national governments and in the practices of formal and non-formal education. In this context GEL has become an umbrella term covering a range of educational traditions and a body of knowledge on global issues.

In Europe, the so-called “global education” approach was first reflected in the Global Education Charter, adopted in 1997 by the Council of Europe. Subsequently, the Maastricht Declaration promoted in 2002 by the Council of Europe has so far provided a framework for European and member state strategies on global education. After 20 years the Maastricht declaration has been revised at the end of a long public consultation process involving experts and stakeholders and gave rise to what has been designated the Dublin Declaration (GENE, 2022)

While there is extensive literature and systematic review on GCE (Goren & Yemini, 2017), and ESD (Bascopé et al., 2019) there is a lack of in-depth analysis on the academic contribution in European languages other than English. Yet data show that out of 3,500 publications that have been published in the last ten years in 10 European languages only half are in English (ANGEL, 2020, 2021, 2022).

 However, as papers in this symposium will demonstrate there has been a considerable engagement in GEL themes within a range of European countries such as Germany, Italy, Finland, Spain and Portugal. The discussion will recognise the important role played by literature in English as lingua franca of the international research community, but a distinctive feature of this symposium will be also to ensure that voices on debates from other European languages as well as from other regions of the world are included.  

The papers in this symposium will combine literature analysis in various European countries with data included in various editions of the Multilingual Global Education Digest. The 5 editions of this report provide a reasoned bibliography of academic and research materials relevant to the field of GEL, outlining the growing space that this approach occupies within the scholarly discourse and providing an invaluable guide for researchers, policymakers and practitioners. The first edition compiled literature published from 2015-2017, and was followed by editions in 2018, 2020, 2021 and 2022. Over time, the Digest has expanded to incorporate research in an increasing number of languages, with the last edition including 10 languages: English, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Slovakian, and Spanish.

The Global Education Digest project, was developed by the Academic Network of Global Education and Learning (ANGEL) and was coordinated by the Development Education Research Centre (DERC) at UCL, Institute of Education and the UNESCO Chair in Global Citizenship Education at the University of Bologna with the contribution of 36 scholars from 13 different countries.

The symposium will look at different national trends in this research area giving voice to three emblematical and diverse cases: Finnish (Riikka Suhonen et al.), Portuguese (Dalila Cohelo et al.) and Italian (Carla Inguaggiato et al.). Finally, Douglas Bourn will critically discuss the papers by also bringing in the English perspective.

ANGEL (2020). Global Education Digest 2020. London: Development Education Research Centre, UCL Institute of Education https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10112144/ ANGEL (2021). Global Education Digest 2021. London: Development Education Research Centre, UCL Institute of Education. https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10137056/ ANGEL (2022). Global Education Digest 2022. London: Development Education Research Centre, UCL Institute of Education. https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10161623/ Bascopé, M., Perasso, P., Reiss, K. (2019). Systematic Review of Education for Sustainable Development at an Early Stage: Cornerstones and Pedagogical Approaches for Teacher Professional Development. Sustainability, 11, 719. Bourn, D. (2020) (ed.). Bloomsbury Handbook of Global Education and Learning. London: Bloomsbury. Davies, I., Ho, L-C., Kiwan, D. Peck,C. Peterson, A, Sant, E. and Waghid, Y. (2018) (eds.) The Palgrave Handbook of Global Citizenship and Education. London: Palgrave Forghani-Arani, N. Hartmeyer, H. O'Loughlin, E. and Wegimont, L. (2013) Global Education in Europe. Muntser: Waxmann Hartmeyer, H. and Wegimont, L. (2018) Global Education Revisted. Munster: Waxmann McAuley, J. (2018) (ed.). The State of Global Education, 2018. Dublin: GENE. GENE (2022). The European Declaration on Global Education to 2050. The Dublin Declaration. A Strategy Framework for Improving and Increasing Global Education in Europe to 2050. Dublin: GENE. 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.