Research: Teaching about ethical global issues
Critical engagements with sustainable development: Research and teaching resource for ethical global issues pedagogy.
Project summary
Project summary
- January 2018 to March 2019
The project was inspired by UNESCO guidance on global citizenship education and the International Youth White Paper on Global Citizenship, which call for stronger critical attention to unpacking mainstream assumptions and centring marginalised perspectives.
It explored barriers and enabling factors experienced by teachers in addressing complex relationships between environmental, economic, and social issues in their teaching.
Through workshops in England, Finland and Sweden exploring the HEADS UP tool (Andreotti, 2012) and its classroom application, the project aimed to connect decolonial theory with classroom experience in Europe. In so doing, it aimed to support secondary and upper secondary teachers to explore difficult questions about the profound inequalities at the heart of unsustainable development.
Research findings
The Teaching for Sustainable Development Through Ethical Global Issues Pedagogy Report finds teachers are eager and willing to take a more critical approach to the teaching of global issues. Further, they find their students appreciate being challenged by complex ideas and deeply engaging in ethical considerations around global issues.
A thematic analysis of the data identified three key findings:
- teachers are both enabled and constrained by curriculum, and many find strategic ways to take a critical approach
- teachers see the role of colonialism in global issues as both important to acknowledge and challenging in practice, and they could use further support and resourcing
- teachers face an overwhelming number of relevant materials and want resources that can be adapted to current teaching in order to deepen engagement
Collaboratively produced teacher resource
A resource to support deepening and complexifying the treatment of global issues in secondary classrooms through adapting the HEADS UP tool was drafted and piloted with participants.
It has been used by participants and the researchers to support continuing professional development in their own communities as well as in other countries in Europe and in North America. Supporting teachers’ existing practice, it focuses on:
- supporting teachers to critically reflect on their own views while preparing lessons
- guiding students to identify and de-centre mainstream perspectives and consider marginalised perspectives
- adding complexity to exploring any global issues topic
- breaking down global issues and identifying the challenges
- debriefing any actions and responses following the lessons
Quote about the project
The resource offers a fantastic way of getting students to reflect on a key issue, engage in it critically and empathise with others in global contexts. These are exactly the skills and abilities that students need to develop in today’s world.
Downloadable teacher resources
Research outputs
Academic papers
- Pashby, K. and Sund, L. (2020) Decolonial options and foreclosures for global citizenship education and education for sustainable development. Nordic Journal of Comparative and International Education (NJCIE). 4(1), pp.66-83,
- Sund, L. and Pashby, K. (2020), Delinking global issues in northern Europe classrooms, Journal of Environmental Education, 51(2), pp.156-170
- Pashby, K., da Costa, M. and Sund, L. (2020) Pluriversal possibilities for global education in northern Europe Journal of Social Science Education, 12(4), 45–62
- Pashby, K., da Costa, M., Sund, L. and Corcoran, S. (2020) Resourcing an ethical global issues pedagogy with secondary teachers in northern Europe. In S. Saúde, A. Raposo, N. Pereira and Ana Isabel Rodrigues (Eds.) Teaching and Learning Practices that Promote Sustainable Development and Active Citizenship. IGI Publishers. IGI-Global
- Sund, L. and Pashby, K. (2018), ‘Is It That We Do Not Want Them to Have Washing Machines?’: Ethical Global Issues Pedagogy in Swedish Classrooms, Sustainability, 10(10), pp.3552-3552
- Andreotti, V., Stein, S., Sutherland, A., Pashby, K., Susa, R., and Amsler, S. (2018). Mobilising different conversations about global justice in education: toward alternative futures in uncertain times. Policy and Practice: A Development Education Review, 26, 9–41
Research reports
- Teaching for sustainable development through ethical global issues pedagogy: participatory search with teachers A report by Karen Pashby, Louise Sund and Su Corcoran
- Ethical Global Issues Pedagogy Impact Survey: Summary of results A report by Kate Wicker and Karen Pashby
Staff profiles
Research team
Lead researchers
- Dr Karen Pashby
- Dr Louise Sund, of Mälardalen and Örebro University
Research associate
Funding
With funding from
The British Academy
Contacts
Contact us
For general enquiries about the Education and Social Research Institute’s education and global futures group, you can contact research group leads Dr Karen Pashby or Dr Edda Sant.
Project enquiries
For project enquiries, please contact Dr Karen Pashby.
