Industry, government, and universities in Canada frequently identify global citizenship as an important outcome of education; however, there is significant debate about the meaning of this term. We will frame this presentation by: explaining the roots of this debate, identifying some of the key terms frequently used by universities as proxies for global citizenship, and uncovering discrepancies among universities in their understanding and approach to global citizenship.
Universities must take an active role in encouraging a new generation of Canadians to become global citizens, and most have identified this as a goal for their institutions. However, if this goal is to be achieved, universities must be intentional in their efforts; rather than using proxies for the term and only vaguely identifying the methods by which it could be achieved, institutions must explicitly define what they mean by global citizenship and overtly distinguish the mechanisms they will use to assist students in becoming global citizens.
To generate discussion among participants about how to encourage global citizenship, we will propose a unifying framework for global citizenship and offer some methods through which institutions can evaluate their efforts. A shared understanding of how our education system discusses global citizenship is necessary to help better shape the experiences students have, to ensure the evaluation of university programs is possible and effective, and to create alliances among industry, government, and universities to enhance their development of individuals as global citizens.