Abstract: How does an IB PYP school nurture global citizens?

Submitted by Rosaline Marquis on Thu, 18/06/2020 - 11:34

How does an IB PYP school nurture global citizens?

Schools are increasingly being asked to include global citizenship as a key element of the education they provide in light of the world’s growing nationalism and in the face of complex global issues. The concepts of global citizenship education (GCE) have been implicitly embedded within the notion of international-mindedness, which lies at the heart of the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme (PYP).

However, GCE in the PYP has often been criticised for being western in its approach and poorly understood by its stakeholders. There has also been criticism of the notion of GCE itself, viewed as a modern colonialism by some scholars who call from a more critical pedagogical approach to GCE (Savva & Stanfield, 2018; Stein, Andreotti & Suša, 2019).

This case study research aims to better understand the approach to GCE undertaken by one international PYP school in Switzerland. Data has been collected from relevant school documents and surveys of teachers, students and parents. The themes emerging from the qualitative analysis are being interpreted by applying a heuristic of three main GCE orientations (Pashby, et al, 2020), creating a social cartography that enables a discussion of the school's potential to provide a critical approach to GCE.

While the analyses are not yet complete the initial findings suggest that the written curriculum approaches GCE with a liberal lens, focusing on universal values and the encouragement of students to take action for world justice and governance. However, it appears that some of the stakeholders hold a more neoliberal view that is at times at odds with the written curriculum. There is an implied move toward a more critical stance with the assumed reflexivity that takes place within each unit of inquiry. However, such criticality is heavily dependent upon the individual teacher’s interpretation of the unit of study and how this is realised in actual practice with students.