Global Citizenship Education (GCE) has the potential to contribute to positive transformations in society through its focus on global societal issues and values such as ethics, peace, solidarity, hope, equality, sustainability, and interculturality (Bourn, 2025; Cho & Mosselson, 2018; Le & Duong, 2023; Tarozzi, 2023; The United Nations, 2015). At the same time, there is consensus in GCE scholarship that the GCE discourse is dominated by Western and neoliberal hegemony, which focuses on people’s capacity to be productive and efficient members of society. On the other hand, many cultures and knowledges of the world are left out of the GCE discourse. In this vein, many scholars, including Pashby et al. (2020), Pashby and da Costa (2021) and Osler (2015), have argued that the GCE discourse should be decolonised, and that GCE should encompass pluralist approaches (Bosio and Waghid, 2023).

Many scholars also claim that GCE should consider culturally diverse civic youth identities, for such education to be inclusive, more relevant and epistemically just. This study offers a view on how engaging with culturally diverse and migrant youth in GCE scholarship can illuminate young people’s understanding of citizenship, global citizenship, their aspirations for civic participation, and education about citizenship and global citizenship. The research question relevant to this paper is: How can culturally diverse young people’s lived experiences and knowledges contribute to a more pluralistic GCE through educational research?

To answer this research question, this study followed the transformative paradigm (Hurtado, 2015; Mertens, 2025), informed by decoloniality (Mignolo & Walsh, 2018), to engage with culturally diverse youth, and enquire about their lived experiences and perspectives of citizenship, global citizenship and GCE. The transformative paradigm (Hurtado, 2015; Mertens, 2025) focuses on engaging with marginalised communities and people in nondominant cultural groups, challenging power structures, and advocating for social justice and positive social change. Decoloniality, mostly as discussed by Mignolo and Walsh (2018), informed the theoretical framework of the study, as it centres on the goals of epistemic reconstitution (Mignolo, 2021), or re-establishing justice and equality in the world’s knowledge systems. This theoretical framework supports the study’s intention to better understand culturally diverse young people’s views and lived experiences, which can enrich the education about citizenship and global citizenship, and make it more relevant to all students.

This paper includes the findings from the study that involved thirty-three culturally diverse and migrant young people between 15 and 25 years of age, mostly from Europe and Asia, and residing in Australia at the time of participating in the study. The findings offer rich insights into young people’s lived experiences of cultural and epistemic diversity, in relation to (global) citizenship identities and participation. Thus, it is argued in the paper that including young people in educational research is significant, as it can help to better understand their values, experiences, and aspirations. This improved understanding of culturally diverse young people’s civic identities and practices can contribute to creating a GCE that is more pluralistic, just and relevant to all students.

Sixteen young people between 15-17 years of age participated in individual interviews, where they discussed their experiences and perspectives on citizenship, global citizenship and GCE. Following the interviews, seventeen young people between 18-25 of age took part in four focus groups, co-analysing interviews and envisioning a GCE that they considered relevant. The focus groups were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2022). The data collection and analysis methods were guided by decolonial intentions, including epistemic reconstitution and pluriversality (Mignolo, 2021; Mignolo & Walsh, 2018). Another significant aspect of methodology was reflexivity. The researcher, as a female, heterosexual, able-bodied migrant from Serbia living in Australia, embedded deep reflexivity into the study. This reflexivity included the insider-outsider positioning (Dwyer & Buckle, 2018; Liu & Burnett, 2022) on multiple levels, and an ongoing reflection about how this complex dynamic affected the study.

The experiences and perspectives of citizenship and GCE shared by the study participants in sixteen interviews and four focus groups relate to multiple societal issues, including their concerns about experiencing racism and discrimination, as well as barriers to practising and staying connected with their culture, faith, language, and civic/cultural identity. Young people’s active participation in the educational research that is concerned about their education, their values and their future, reflected hope that has increasingly become an important notion in the CE/GCE discourse (Andreotti, 2021; Bourn, 2025; Tarozzi, 2023). This study’s research findings can contribute to understanding the lived experiences of civic youth identities and of how young people from culturally diverse and migrant backgrounds perceive and imagine a just and culturally inclusive GCE. It is recommended that, to embrace more socially, epistemically just and decolonial approaches to GCE, young people from culturally diverse backgrounds should actively participate in the GCE discourse. The role of academic researchers is also significant, as it can support enquiring about and integrating culturally diverse young people’s needs, experiences, aspirations and perspectives into their education. The paper also argues that such an effort of educational researchers could provide insights that can support epistemic reconstitution in GCE by valuing and including the lived dimension of diverse cultures and knowledges of youth, and by acknowledging young people as knowledge holders.

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