Social Studies Teachers’ Interpretations of Global Citizenship

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate how social studies teachers conceptualize global citizenship and how personal, professional, and contextual characteristics influenced respondents’ choices of a global citizenship model and their confidence to teach about global citizenship in the classroom. The online data were collected from 209 secondary social studies teachers and analyzed by calculating the conditional distribution of responses. Although the majority of participants agreed that they were familiar with the concept of global citizenship, the range of opinions about what global citizenship entails demonstrated that many of them interpreted it in their own way without a systemic understanding of this concept. The findings of the study also indicated the need for more inclusive curricula in secondary citizenship education and more global citizenship-related topics in teacher education programs, particularly those that prepare future social studies teachers.