Teacher Education for Citizenship in a Globalized World: a Case Study in Spain

Abstract

Abstract: Considering the attention that global citizenship education has recently received, it is not much of a surprise that teacher education programs and courses around the world are including stated goals related to the preparation of teachers to educate their students for global and participatory citizenship. This is also the case of the Faculty of Education at the University of Cantabria (Spain). This study explores how a group of teacher educators from this university conceptualize citizenship education, if they include global perspectives in their notions, and how they educate for democracy in an increasingly globalized world. Although teacher education can contribute to challenge pre-service teachers’ perceptions of the nation state as the only locus for democracy and citizenship, the inclusion of global perspectives done by these teacher educators has been very limited. Also, the participants that were more globally concerned were those who had a stronger sense of social justice.