Global Education toolkit "Youth of the World: the transformative power of Global Education"

Aims of the tool

The intention of our project, therefore, is to create non-formal educational and training tools for youth workers who will then be able to integrate the Global Education Perspective in their daily work and organization, the aim is to spread this methodology mainly in Youth but also in other sectors of education.

Description of the tool

The cultural model of individualism characterizing the educational systems of many countries in the EU is based on the typical attitudes of the individualistic and dominant culture, rather than on dialogue and cooperation, where the problems related to globalization and the awareness of current realities are not relevant with national education programmes.

The absence of Global Education (GE) in the first step of education causes an uncompleted development of identity in teenagers and in adulthood. In this process, adolescents and young adults tend (Jensen et al., 2011) to use the global media and prefer global brands more significantly than children and adults, as well as developing a global consciousness or awareness.

The sense of belonging to the national or local community has thus gradually turn a perception of the world as a whole, which is belonging to a community of individuals of different nationalities and cultures that adhere to common practices and lifestyles around the world, such as music styles, film, apparel brands, food chains, technology and mass communication tools.

If globalization can lead, therefore, to the development of bicultural or mono-cultural identity, there is also the possibility that increases the risk of generating a state of identity confusion: it is possible, in fact, that people end up feeling excluded from both the global community and the local one. This phenomenon appeared important in the case for example of religious or ultra right radicalization of European young people in different countries (FR, DE, IT, BL, UK etc.)

Nowadays in a dynamic and flexible rapid change, the capacity to adapt is one of the key skills to live in a society more and more multicultural and globalized. Educational agencies are called to design educational path to train young people and citizens to act in a local and global context. GE is an area of policy, practice, research and educational advocacy. It is an umbrella term that encompasses a variety of areas with differing terminologies: development education, human rights education, education for sustainable development, education for global citizenship. GE has become increasingly central to education policy and practice. (Italian Journal of Educational Research | Year VII | Number 12 | June 2014)

The Recommendation CM / Rec (2011), 4 of the Committee of member states Ministers on education interdependence and global solidarity, mentions that the “Education interdependence and global solidarity is the first European legal standards on intercultural education”. The Maastricht Congress in 2002 called on the 40 European countries participating to develop national strategies for the increase and improvement of GE. Since then, the number of countries with national strategies has grown significantly. Meanwhile, strategies exist in AU, CZ, FI, DE, IE, PL, PT, SK and ES. They are different from each other in process, scope and reach, and have to be understood against their national background and context.

The intention of our project, therefore, is to create non-formal educational and training tools for youth workers who will then be able to integrate the GE Perspective in their daily work and organization, the aim is to spread this methodology mainly in Youth but also in other sectors of education.