Geography education professionals’ understanding of global citizenship: Insights for a more just geography curriculum

ABSTRACT

This study aims to articulate how the language of the geography curriculum privileges modernist discourses of global citizenship at the expense of others. Drawing on the work of two critical scholars, empirical data from South Korea reveals how geography education professionals (GEPs) engaged closely with the (re)production of geographical knowledge that perpetuates totalizing and non-inclusive discourses about the world. To achieve a more just geography curriculum, this study suggests that GEPs engage with a contextualized, empirical understanding of students’ engagement with knowledge concerning global others and discuss the politics and ethics of curriculum knowledge, in addition to the responsibilities involved in “writing the world.”

KEYWORDS:

• Deconstruction
• global citizenship
• governmentality
• justice
• school geography

Acknowledgment

The author wishes to thank Dr. Christine Winter for her support and guidance.