Mark Potts

International Educational Development and Learning through Sustainable Partnerships

1. Transforming International Educational Development Through Living Global Citizenship 2. Pedagogy for Effective Citizenship Education 3. Living Theory Transformed into Living Global Citizenship 4. Living Legacies: Living Global Citizenship in Action 5. Designing a Living Global Citizenship Project 6. Propositions for Living Global Citizenship Projects 7. Living Global Citizenship: Lessons for Humanity

Living Global Citizenship

The originality of my research lies in clarifying and explaining what it means for me to have an educational entrepreneurial spirit and the values I hold that demonstrate this spirit in an explanation of educational influence in learning. This explanation includes a responsibility for students and acknowledging my values of passion and care (‘love’ of what I do), safety, creativity and excellence within my practice. The unit of appraisal in a living theory methodology is the explanation of the influence in my own learning, the learning of others and in the learning of social formations. The methodological inventiveness, particular to the Living Educational Theory methodology, has afforded me an opportunity to express who I really am; body, mind and spirit. I use multimodal forms to communicate and express the nature of the knowledge that I am generating. I can now claim that my values have become living standards of judgement.

Transforming International Educational Development through Living Global Citizenship

In this first chapter we establish the origins of the idea of ‘Living Global Citizenship’ and we represent it as three transformations in thinking that have taken place over the past 12 years as we have engaged in discussions about the nature of international educational development and learning through partnerships. We set it in the context of the discourse regarding partnerships between the Global South and the Global North, arguing that it is consistent with a postcolonial perspective that seeks to address issues of injustice and unequal power relations. We also position it in terms of the debate regarding educational cosmopolitanism and universal values and suggest that such notions ignore the importance of learning from difference, whereby difference is to be celebrated as a cultural asset. Finally, we suggest that Living Global Citizenship, by putting values at the heart of partnerships, can be regarded as an antidote to the prevalent ideas of de-skilling, de-moralisation and de-valuation inherent in contemporary economic rationalism.

Pedagogy for Effective Citizenship Education

In this chapter we first deconstruct current notions of citizenship education and explore how it is regarded and delivered in various educational settings. We then go on to deconstruct contemporary UK ideas about the ‘Big Society’ and cultural education. From this position we then construct our own alternative pedagogy for the delivery of effective citizenship education within any cultural setting, thereby creating a new meaning for the term ‘cultural education’.

Designing a Living Global Citizenship Project

In the previous chapter we outlined several projects which continue to demonstrate the participants living out their values as global citizens through partnerships. We called these Living Cases. In this chapter we attempt to draw together the key elements in each of these projects, thereby identifying the key design features of a Living Global Citizenship project. The purpose of this is to provide a clear explanation for participants in partnerships as to how to establish a partnership based on the values of Living Global Citizenship and Cultural Empathy. We start by providing an explanation of the pedagogical protocols of a Living Global Citizenship project, followed by an analysis of the lessons that can be learnt from good and poor practice. There is a danger of what we call cultural blind spots within a partnership that can lead to inequitable power relationships and of development being ‘done to people’. This leads to a lack of ownership and a lack of impact on people’s lives and is therefore considered to be an unsustainable development. Finally, we consider alternative models for partnership development and offer a model for developing a sustainable community partnership for learning and development. It is this partnerships model that we believe will meet the UN’s future agenda for international development as part of the post-2015 SDGs.

Propositions for Living Global Citizenship Projects

In Chapter 4 we gave some examples as Living Legacies of Living Global Citizenship partnerships. In the same way that we have presented these multimedia narratives concerning participation in the partnership, we want to encourage others to do the same. These should be multimedia accounts and should be put into the public domain for sharing, debating and contesting by others. This helps to create an activist identity (Sachs, 1999) for the participant. The democratic discourses around the narratives give rise to the development of communities of practice (Wenger, 1998) which can have a profound impact on participants’ lives. Teacher participants can use such narratives to evidence professional standards. Values are part of the professional attributes for teachers as indicated in the Professional Standards for Teachers in England (2007) by the phrase: ‘Demonstrate the positive values, attitudes and behaviour they expect from children and young people’. There is a clear expectation that teachers model the values that the students are to adopt. The evidence shows that a Living Global Citizenship partnership with emphasis on the exploration of values provides many opportunities for participants to form and demonstrate positive values. In providing opportunities for the living out of values as a form of living-global-citizenship, educational partnerships can deliver improved educational standards.

Living Global Citizenship: Lessons for Humanity

Embodied living-global-citizenship is a significant and original contribution to both knowledge and knowledge production and operates as a standard of judgement for evaluating the validity of the contributions to knowledge. The notions of living-global-citizenship emerge as a synthesis of the research approach adopted and the actions of the participants in an educational partnership. Embodied meanings of living-global-citizenship can be expressed in descriptions of the way that participants in educational partnerships identify, negotiate and then live out their values in a practical way, through their joint actions and engagement in cultural-empathy.

Living Legacies: Living Global Citizenship in Action

Each of the authors present their own living narrative of how they are engaged in a Living Global Citizenship project within which they are living out their values and contributing to improving their own lives and the lives of others. In addition, there are narratives of values- based activities from others that demonstrate the contribution that individuals are making as they live out their lives as global citizens and contribute to making a difference to the lives of others. These accounts exemplify difference and are personal statements of validity that validate the ideas of Living Global Citizenship and Cultural Empathy. They also reflect inter-cultural learning experiences. Individuals who are committed to holding themselves to account for living these values as fully as possible create a social movement that can contribute to transforming the world. We are claiming that our living legacies in the form of our living-educational-theories of our influences in living-global-citizenship can make a significant contribution towards social movements. This powerful approach towards professional learning can be applied to many different working cultural contexts within businesses and organisations, all educational sectors, across joint venture projects, government departments, NGOs and international projects in general.

Living Theory Transformed into Living Global Citizenship

An academic framework for living-global-citizenship has emerged from the creation by individuals of their living-educational-theories as they engage with enquiries of the kind, ‘How do I improve what I am doing?’ and engage with the ideas of others. The evolution of living-global-citizenship from notions of living-theory has emerged from a 45-year research programme (1968–2013) into the nature of educational theories that can produce valid explanations for the educational influences of individuals in their own learning, in the learning of others and in the learning of the social formations in which we live, work and research.

Living citizenship: transcending the cultural divide

Living citizenship emerging from reflection on an international educational partnership makes a unique contribution to the field and importantly fulfils the British Educational Research Association aim of improving educational practice for the public benefit. This paper explores the conceptual framework of ‘living citizenship’ as a means for developing international continuing professional development through action research projects. Adapting Whitehead’s living educational theory approach to action research, living citizenship supports and problematises international educational partnerships through the influence of enabling participants as critically active citizens. Such pro-active fieldwork links the values and objectives of social justice and knowledge exchange to proffering educational change within authentic international continuing professional development professional learning environments.