Global Citizenship

""Accession 8 (A8) migration to the UK has been studied extensively over the last few years. In fact, migration from the new EU member states to the UK has been one of the most significant social phenomena of recent times. However, gender and gender roles, in particular in relation to A8 migration, remain an under-researched area. There is now much evidence to support the view that migrant women constitute a large proportion of international migrants. In fact, when considering migration within the European context, migrant women already outnumber their male counterparts.
Evidence suggests that characterising women as passive followers of migrant men is flawed. Drawing on an extensive review of secondary literature in relation to citizenship, gender and the new Accession 8 migration to the UK, in this paper it is argued that migrant women should be seen as active decision makers. The aim of this paper is to explore how migrant women utilise migratory spaces within the European Union (EU) to better their own and their families’ wellbeing. In this paper migration is considered as a catalyst for change in traditional gender roles, and it is explored how Polish migrant women negotiate their gender roles in regard to work and welfare responsibilities when exercising their rights as EU citizens. It is concluded that gender roles may be reconfigured through the migratory process. However, when taking women into account, migration may result in ‘double caring responsibilities’, as the literature suggests.""

""The aim of this MA dissertation was to investigate and discuss the negotiation and development of identity construction of young Latvians (aged 18-25) in London.
Citizenship and identity have been linked in research before and it has become an important field in social anthropology. Various works through the decades  have been written on identity and its complex ways (see e.g. Barth 1969, Sahlins 1999, Smith 1991, Long 2000, Gupta 1992) which is the main reason for choosing this theme for my dissertation. This work will look at Latvian migrant identity construction regarding citizenship, politics, ethnicity, nationality, language and other aspects. For the last decade the migration level in Latvia has grown substantially due to joining the EU, open border and market policy, political instability and the socio-economic situation during and after the economic crisis in 2008-2010.
In order to investigate these aspects I gathered data through in-depth interviews with 11 Latvian respondents (age 18-25) residing in London. During the interviews lots of interesting and fascinating opinions were observed in different spheres like identification, belonging, politics, human rights, citizenship and the use of language.
The most important findings that appeared during the research are that Latvian migration during the last decade is mostly based on the socio-economic situation and life satisfaction: one of the most important roles in identity construction for Latvians is the aspect of language and ethnicity and even though most of the migrants come here for a short period of time, most of them stay here permanently; dual citizenship when installed will not be a crucial factor in the identity construction for young Latvians in London in future. ""

The aim of this qualitative case study is to investigate how learning in “democratic participation” is constituted by the social interaction and conversation pattern in school democratic meetings in a Swedish primary school. According to the findings, a pupil control discourse and the Initiation-Response-Evaluation pattern dominates the conversations. The teacher initiates by asking a question, the pupils respond by answering the question, and then the teacher evaluates that response. The findings show no discursive shift from traditional classroom talk to democratic deliberative talk. Instead there is an emphasis on the “right answers” and subordinating authorities rather than deliberative dialogue and democratic participation, which influences pupils to adopt a naïve or a cynical attitude to democracy.

In recent years, more and more attention has been paid to international education in schools in the USA. Education professionals, business leaders, and politicians realize that schools and school leaders must identify multiple opportunities for students to interact with and experience a global society. Nationally, there has been a considerable investment of funds by several key foundations and much political talk about the need to push American education towards a model of schooling that expressly responds to the need for internationally competent citizens. Using mixed methodology design, this study is fueled by a desire to better understand several overarching elements in international education. In short, the authors of this paper posit that no further research, policy formation, or program development within the realm of international education for public schools can be undertaken until an understanding of the current state of international education and the capacity for internationalization is empirically explored.

The "Greek crisis" was officially inaugurated on May 2010 with the loan the Greek government took from the IMF-European Union-European Central Bank troika, the largest a country had ever taken (€110 bn). Since then, the social implications of this crisis have been dramatic. The form and the scale of social phenomena observed today in Greece and particularly in Athens--e.g., extreme poverty and inequality, profound police violence, organized racist violence--are unprecedented for the country. Nevertheless, a diachronic examination of some socio-spatial aspects of Athens reveals that the social character of the current crisis has been taking shape for some time. This article aims shed light on the social shape of the crisis by outlining three such socio-spatial dimensions as they materialized in the case of Athens during 1990s and 2000s: first, the emergence of new forms of social exclusion and inequality; second, the vast project of urban (re)development and the new spatialities it produced, and third the emergence of novel forms of political and xenophobic violence.

This paper presents a multi-voiced examination of educating for global citizenship from critical, interdisciplinary perspectives. The paper explores how insights from theoretical work on multiculturalism, race, religion, gender, language and literacy, and eco-justice can contribute to a critical global citizenship education practice. It reports the learning of a group of six Canadian PhD Candidates, who engaged in a year-long collaborative process to explore critical approaches to global citizenship education by focusing on key intersecting concerns, particularly critically understanding globalization. Drawing on theoretical considerations and discussions, the authors consider pedagogical implications for classroom teaching and learning.