Using the SDGs for global citizenship education: definitions, challenges, and opportunities

ABSTRACT

The 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) employ a global indicator framework to detail each Goal and monitor its implementation. This article focuses on three targets from the indicator framework, which call for mainstreaming education for global citizenship, sustainable development, and climate change into national curricula. By investigating the practicalities of meeting these targets from an educator's perspective, this article proceeds with: arguing for a need to shift the central purpose of education; examining what is meant by education ‘for’ the three key areas included in the global indicator framework; exploring curricular opportunities offered by the SDGs; and presenting inquiry-based learning as a pedagogical approach for critically interrogating the SDGs with learners. If the SDGs are used to drive a pragmatic definition of global citizenship, then trends in education such as inquiry- and problem-based learning come to life with a clear and urgent purpose.

KEYWORDS:

• Global citizenship education
• education for sustainable development
• climate change education
• inquiry-based learning
• Sustainable Development Goals

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Evans and Musvipwa (2017, 43) have presented valid criticism regarding implicit hierarchies in the SDGs, which will be discussed later in this article.

2 I would like to thank Ying-Syuan (Elaine) Huang, Blane Leslie Harvey, Carlos Pittella, and the journal's reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this article. I would also like to recognize Global Citizenship Experience Lab School in Chicago for fostering the innovative environment that helped shape my ideas on GCED.