Who Needs Global Citizenship Education? A Review of the Literature on Teacher Education

Given the seemingly ever-increasing scholarly production about the ideas and ideals of global citizenship education (GCE), it is not surprising those discussions started to gain influence in teacher education (TE) debates. In this study, we examine the discourses that tacitly shape the meanings of GCE within the contemporary academic literature on TE. After analyzing the peer-reviewed scholarship published from 2003 to 2018, we identified patterns in how GCE for TE was described and defended, beyond the differences in their conceptual frameworks. The dominant trend found is to frame GCE as a redemptive educational solution to global problems. This framing requires teachers to embrace a redemptive narrative following a model of rationality based on altruistic, hyperrationalized and overly romanticized ideals. Ultimately, TE literature contributes to the configuration of an excessively naïve discourse that tends to ignore the neoliberal context in which both GCE and TE take place today.


Introduction
Given the seemingly ever-increasing scholarly production about the ideas and ideals of global citizenship education (GCE; Goren & Yemini, 2017;Sant et al., 2018), it is not surprising that these discussions started to gain influence in teacher education (TE) debates. As Byker (2016) stated, "Government leaders and education policymakers have increasingly focused on ways that teachers can better prepare children for life in a global society. Such preparation includes the development of global citizenship among young people" (p. 264). Although not dominant (Bamber et al., 2016;Hunt et al., 2011), more teacher training programs around the world are including goals related to educate their students for global citizenship (e.g., Partnership for 21st Century Learning, 2014;Tarozzi & Inguaggiato, 2018). Also, TE literature has given increasing attention to GCE in recent years (Gaudelli, 2016;Goren & Yemini, 2017).
In this article, we analyze the discourses that tacitly shape the meanings of GCE within TE literature to identify conceptual continuities and departures in citizenship education (CE) perspectives. Civic education discourses have often been based on lofty ideals and the promise of developing new professional educators who embody the enlightened principles of equity, multiculturalism, sustainable development, social justice, and economic growth (Fischman & Haas, 2014). There appears to be a strong continuity between the principles undergirding current support for GCE and previous civic education discourses that underscore the power of schools and teachers in redeeming and liberating individuals, saving them from the clutches of ignorance and barbarism (Popkewitz, 2009). We are, therefore, exploring continuities and disruptions of redemptive, romanticized conceptual frames that may have unintended, and possibly detrimental, implications for civic education models.

Framing Global Citizenship Education
In recent years, the focus of civic education discussion has visibly moved toward GCE, inspiring much academic research worldwide (Gaudelli, 2016;Goren & Yemini, 2017). For advocates of GCE, nationally bounded models of citizenship are no longer adequate for new global scenarios and subjectivities (Bauman, 2001;Robertson & Dale, 2008;Yemini, 2017). This strong interest in the "global" is also present in other trends in the educational literature closely related to GCE: global education, international education, peace education, human rights education, development education, and among 920254J TEXXX10.1177/0022487120920254Journal of Teacher EducationEstellés and Fischman research-article2020 1 University of Cantabria, Santander, Spain 2 Arizona State University, Tempe, USA other topics. According to L. Davies (2006, p. 6), GCE resulted from the integration of all global education trends and CE perspectives. Yet, he is not the only scholar who contemplates GCE as an overarching concept that unifies other educational models focused on global and citizenship issues.
GCE is frequently presented as the result of a simple evolutionary pedagogical model, that is, the latest, best, and the most comprehensive model that incorporates all the positive goals and practices from previous efforts (multicultural education, human rights education, peace education, environmental education . . .) and overcomes their limitations. To cite a few examples, Hahn (2005) advocates GCE because human rights education, although essential, is not always sufficient; I. Davies et al. (2005) critique the limitations of "global education" and "CE" supporting the integration of both in GCE; Mannion et al. (2011) advocate GCE as it brings together "environmental education," "developmental education," and "CE"; for Su et al. (2013), GCE is the result of the development and convergence of "global education," "developmental education," and "CE"; Eidoo et al. (2011) conceptualizes GCE "as a natural extension to multicultural education" (p. 67); and for Appleyard and McLean (2011), GCE "integrate[s] the themes of peace and justice, human rights, environmental sustainability and international development into educational curricula and practice" (p. 10). Thus, GCE is often considered as the supreme integration and improvement of previous educational models.
The concept of GCE has not been, however, exempt from criticism. Numerous scholars have critiqued its implicit Western cultural biases (Andreotti & de Souza, 2012;Dill, 2013;Wang & Hoffman, 2016). In Dill's (2013) words, "GCE in its dominant forms is not universal but rather highly particularized in Western liberal individualism" (p. 6). Other scholars have also pointed out that GCE frequently becomes a form of educational elitism under accountability models (DiCicco, 2016;Weenink, 2008;Zemach-Bersin, 2012). In addition, authors such as Marshall (2011), Veugelers (2011), and Weenink (2008 characterize cosmopolitanism as a form of social capital used to expand the commercialization of educational opportunities. The use of GCE as form of social distinction is especially visible among international schools (Gardner-McTaggart, 2016).
Another unifying critical reading situates GCE as largely framed and expanded by neo-liberal policies that are far from pursuing global solidarity, sustainability, or cross-cultural literacy (Andreotti & de Souza, 2012;Arnold, 2016;DiCicco, 2016;Myers, 2016). The research done by Arnold (2016) and Dill (2013) highlights how equipping students with the necessary knowledge, skills and competences to succeed in an increasingly global market is also a declared intention of many GCE programs.
In sum, GCE is not a homogeneous field, but a disputed educational terrain that admits conflicting visions (Andreotti, 2015;Jorgenson & Shultz, 2012;Wang & Hoffman, 2016). Analysts have distinguished between neoliberal, radical, and transformational approaches (Shultz, 2007); open, moral, and social-political global citizenship (Veugelers, 2011); technical-economic and social justice approaches (Marshall, 2011); cosmopolitan and advocacy types of global citizenship (Oxley & Morris, 2013); and so forth. However, beyond the disputes about its meaning and potential the literature analyzed is substantial and coherent enough to identify common assumptions and frames. The main narrative tendency presented above reifies GCE as if it were the natural result of a pedagogical evolution and a mere sum of harmonious contributions. This idealistic perspective helps to blur the conflictive and complex nature of this relatively new field. As Foucault (2002) concluded in his book The Order of Things, epistemological perspectives presented as a history "of its growing perfection" (p. xxii) create the false impression of a linear pedagogical progress. This sense of the possibility of growing perfection is very frequent in global imaginaries (Stein et al., 2019).

Idealized Civic Education Discourses
Although GCE goes beyond narratives of nationally bound membership, this is not to say dominant GCE discourses have identified -and overcome-all the weaknesses of traditional CE models. Given its "evolutionary" narrative, there is still a need to analyze if GCE dominant models fall into the romantic views about "citizenship," "democracy," and "education" prevalent in previous CE programs.
Several scholars have pointed to the shortcomings of the notion of "citizen" informing most civic education programs, often based on a model of idealized subjectivity of a disembodied Cartesian citizen, that is, an idealized active subject whose political behaviors are the direct effect of rational and deliberate processes (Fischman & Haas, 2012;Knowles & Clark, 2018;McCowan, 2009). In this model of a disembodied Cartesian citizen, it is assumed that civic identities are the product of an emotionally neutral, consciously recognized, and noncontradictory system that provides a stable frame of behavior that can be taught by schools and learned directly by students (McCowan, 2009). However, the idea of human actors as purely conscious and rational beings has been largely questioned by both cognitive scientists (Ariely, 2008;Damasio, 2012;Kahneman, 2012) and social scholars (Bourdieu, 2007;Giddens, 1995). Even for the most engaged citizens, automatic unconscious intuitions are generally responsible of final political decisions, which are often resistant to any information that confronts those emotional insights (Haidt, 2012;Lupia, 2016). To challenge the idealized image of the permanently active and cultivated political subject, some authors advocate for a more "realist" conception of citizenship built around the importance of lived experiences (Biesta, 2007;Schugurensky, 2010) and belonging to social groups as drivers of political behavior (Achen & Bartels, 2016;Tajfel & Turner, 1979).
Similarly, the review of research done by Castro and Knowles (2017) showed how schools often present a (White middle-class) romantic view of civic life that assumes society is fair, all citizens have equal access to participate in decision-making, and there is an implicit inertia toward the common good. Rubin's (2007) analysis also concluded that civic education school curricula present an idealized vision of the American society that contradicts the out-of-school civic experiences of marginalized students from various contexts.
Some scholars have also noted the shortcomings of CE models based on the assumption that education is the magic key for creating citizenship and, therefore, more democratic societies . Apart from the fact that the causal relationship between formal schooling-citizenship-democracy is rather uncertain, 1 this assumption has some perverse implications Evans, 2015). The exaltation of this narrative focuses the attention on the role of individuals in creating a solid political culture, hiding the incidence of the socioinstitutional framework. By considering formal schooling as the main factor of citizen participation, it is implicitly assumed the highest threat to modern democracies is the uncivic disposition of their citizens, minimizing the relevance of other social phenomena such as increasing inequality under the neoliberal regime (Piketty, 2014;Stiglitz, 2012). 2 In conclusion, idealistic notions of democracy, citizenship, and education have been deeply embedded in civic education discourses. The risk of inheriting these romantic perspectives in GCE discourses is that they may also reproduce those detrimental implications: from ignoring the importance of emotion and lived experiences in civic learning (Biesta, 2007) to overlooking the role of power in shaping democracies (Apple, 2008;Knowles & Clark, 2018).

Purpose of the Study: Analyzing Discourses of GCE in TE Literature
In this study, we performed a textual analysis of the discourses that surround GCE in TE literature to identify possible continuities in the idealized perspectives that have often dominated the debate on CE. Here, we use the term "discourse" in the Foucauldian (1972) sense; that is, as a set of practices and rules that govern meanings in a particular area. As Knight-Abowitz and Harnish (2006) stated, "Discourses are not composed of randomly chosen words and statements; rather, each discourse is a product of historical and social circumstances that provide the discursive practices-terminology, values, rhetorical styles, habits, and truths-that construct it" (p. 655). In particular, our aim was to identify, if appropriate, the idealistic assumptions that underlie GCE models in recent TE literature. Therefore, we did not examine the texts in light of different typologies of GCE in TE, which are abundant in the educational literature (Goren & Yemini, 2017). Rather, we wanted to analyze those tacit understandings that framed and idealized GCE within TE literature.

Search Process and Criteria
In this study, we reviewed the contemporary academic literature on GCE and TE. This review was focused on peerreviewed scholarship published from 2003 to 2018 when GCE appears to have gained popularity and the attention of more scholars and educational policymakers (Goren & Yemini, 2017;Sant et al., 2018). We performed initial keyword searches in the following databases: Education Resources Information Center (ERIC), Web of Science (WOS), and Scopus. ERIC's database was chosen because it provides extensive access to a broad range of educational literature, while the WOS and Scopus databases were selected because they contain a wide range of published interdisciplinary content. After this process, we carried out a manual and targeted search within our timeframe using Google Scholar.
We reviewed works dealing with GCE in TE and searched for those articles that included the term "global citizen*" together with others related to the field of TE such as teacher education, teacher training, professional development, preservice teacher*, or trainee teacher* in their title, abstract, and/or keywords. Only peer-reviewed articles were included because they represent the mainstream research (Fox & Diezmann, 2007). An important limitation has to be acknowledged: only works written in English were included in the review.
The initial search in the three main databases identified 73 publications. The manual and targeted search carried out in Google Scholar led to the addition of 32 publications (n = 104). After duplicates were removed, this process left us with 85 unique articles. Following our criteria, 18 book chapters, conference proceedings, books, and reports, and five non-English written articles were removed. The titles and abstracts of the 62 remaining articles were analyzed for inclusion in the review set. We were interested in those publications reporting initiatives, programs or empirical studies embedding GCE in TE as well as in those articles addressing conceptual discussions related to these two fields. Studies covering other issues (n = 8) were excluded. Finally, 54 articles were retained for full review. An overview of the articles selected is presented in Table 1.

Analysis
The authors reviewed and analyzed the full text of each of the 54 articles. Studies reporting or analyzing GCE-TE initiatives were grouped into the category "analyses of a program" (n = 25); articles focusing on conceptual debates or dilemmas about including GCE in TE were categorized as   (2015) Conceptual discussion (n = 7) Global education (n = 3) Sustainability and education (n = 1) English language teaching (n = 1) (2015) Model proposal (n  (2017) Policy analysis (n "conceptual discussions" (n = 7); publications describing their ideal representation of GCE in teacher preparation programs were classified in the group "model proposals" (n = 5); articles addressing investigations about preservice teachers' -or teacher educators'-perceptions/levels about GCE were gathered in "empirical studies" (n = 13); and, finally, papers examining institutional responses to the demand of preparing teachers for GCE were included in the category "policy analysis" (n = 4). A textual analysis inspired on the work done by Knight-Abowitz and Harnish (2006) was performed, focusing the attention on the following aspects of each article: 1. The language used to describe "global citizenship" (the rhetorical style, vocabulary, slogans, terms, and expressions used by the authors), 2. The virtues attributed to GCE and the claims and evidence provided (or omitted) to support it, 3. The rationales provided by the authors for embedding GCE into TE, and 4. The underlying suppositions about the subjectivities present in the teacher preparation programs described, analyzed, or advocated by the authors.
In other words, we examine the possible presence of idealized perspectives in the language used to describe what a global citizen or a global citizenship educator is, in the claims formulated to express the value of educating for global citizenship and in the way the presence of GCE in TE is justified (see Table 2). Therefore, the analysis of the articles extended beyond the differences in their conceptual frameworks and searched for generalized assumptions related to how GCE in TE literature is described and defended. Through an iterative process of memo writing and theme identification across the different aspects of each article mentioned above, we found a dominance of idealized discourses.

Findings: Trends in Global Citizenship Education for TE
As noted by other scholars (Gaudelli, 2016;Goren & Yemini, 2017), GCE is an emerging topic in TE literature. From the 54 articles analyzed, only six were published from 2003 to 2007, while 35 appeared from 2013 to 2018. Very different purposes, conceptual frameworks, and methodological approaches have driven the scholarship reviewed. Among those articles describing/analyzing GCE-TE programs, the authors studied programs oriented to early childhood education (Bauermeister & Diefenbacher, 2015;Jean-Sigur et al., 2016), K-12 education (Guo, 2014;Tichnor-Wagner et al., 2016), English language teaching (Jetnikoff, 2015), social studies education Fry et al., 2012), and extracurricular professional development (Appleyard & McLean, 2011). Some scholars have defended the use of artistic methods such as literature (Bradbery, 2013) or drama (Blanks, 2013;McNaughton, 2014), while others have promoted global experiences such as international service learning practicum (Larsen & Searle, 2017) and cross-cultural communication, either online (Harshman & Augustine, 2013) or in situ (Kopish, 2017). A similar pattern emerged concerning theoretical discussions and model proposals, which defend very different approaches to GCE in TE. Some authors have stressed the importance of human rights (Fernekes, 2016), while others have emphasized computer literacies (Agnello et al., 2006) or English learning (Goh, 2013). Some have focused on the development of a sense of belonging to a global community (Zhao, 2010), while others have highlighted the critical dimension of GCE (Byker & Marquardt, 2016). The majority of the empirical studies analyzed have addressed preservice teachers' levels or perceptions about GCE and/or similar concepts (Byker, 2016;Carr et al., 2014;Günel & Pehlivan, 2016;Holden & Hicks, 2007;Kayışoğlu, 2016;Woolley, 2008;Yoshida, 2017; Yuen & Grossman, 2009), but a few exceptions examined TE curricula (Poole & Russell, 2015) and TE textbooks (Chang, 2003). The only explicit unifying trend among all of them was the recognition of the existence of a new geo-political scenario and a sense of urgency to respond to the challenges derived from globalization. Indeed, these initiatives constitute a commendable attempt by TE scholars to address the challenges of globalization to the profession. Beyond the differences in the conceptual frameworks used, the dominant trend was to frame GCE as a redemptive educational solution to global problems. As we will elaborate, this framing requires teachers to embrace a redemptive narrative following a model of rationality based on altruistic and hyperrationalized and markedly romanticized ideals.

GCE: Redemptive Educational Solution to Global Problems
A powerful trend underlying the discourses about GCE in teacher training literature is the idealization of GCE. The high expectations deposited on GCE for TE create an overly idealized and romanticized image of the transformational potential of schools and teachers. When, for example, Zhao (2010) states that "To ensure a better society for all, in fact to ensure the very survival and continuity of human civilization, requires us to prepare our students to become global citizens" (p. 425) or when Lee et al. (2011) claims that "We, as global citizens, need to collaborate and communicate to resolve the issues for the safety of an international community" (p. 2), these statements indicate that considering GCE as the key factor of a more just and sustainable world invokes an all-powerful educationally redemptive discourse. The idealization of GCE in TE literature can be traced in the idea of GCE as a redemptive educational solution to global problems and in the high expectations deposited on TE for GCE (see Table 3). Both assumptions are rarely supported with evidence, but rather are taken for granted.
The first redemptive idealization is more present in articles addressing theoretical discussions and model proposals than in those aimed at doing empirical and policy analysis (see Table 3). This finding is not surprising: every framing of general ideas about a good society, in this case models of GCE, will necessarily have to use ideal types that minimize or assumed as irrelevant much of the existing complexities of global life. The limitation that we are identifying is not about using ideal types but of producing a simplistic and ineffective narrative by ignoring structural reasons, such as wars, poverty, and unemployment, systematic forms of discrimination, or environmental degradation that severely constrain the potential of educational organizations. Of course, the resolution of these global problems does not just depend on the global citizenship competence of the individuals and their cooperation (Held, 2016). But this narrative outsources the responsibility of solving those global challenges to autonomous individuals (in this case, individual educators), ignoring the incidence of other structural reasons (Hartung, 2017;). As Table 3 shows, the presence of the idea of GCE as a redemptive educational solution to global problems can be traced in almost half of the articles reviewed. The following statement exemplifies this framing. As Guo (2014) claimed in her description of a GCE-TE course: Today's students are graduating into a world that is interconnected as never before. As citizens in the 21st century, they are required to be responsible and responsive to the myriad complex problems and issues of global and local concern, whether in health, environment, peace, or economic security. This shifting global context demands that students today develop the knowledge, skills, attributes, and commitment to global citizenship through the educational process. (p. 2) As can be seen in this quote, the responsibility of solving the global problems lies in individual citizens whose global citizenship skills, acquired through education, will be determinant to meet the shifting global demands.
Paradoxically, however, the GCE-TE proposals described by these articles rarely include activities aimed at getting involved in global struggles. We will mention some concrete examples. For the drama pedagogy GCE-TE program supported by Blanks (2013) in the United States, "encouraging in students the belief that they can make a difference in the world, for the better, was the most important desired outcomes" (p. 13) and, actually, teachers after the workshop recognized had "increased optimism and inspiration" (p. 13), but their active participation in the world was not a scope of the program. Similarly, the course, Issues in Global Education, examined by Kopish (2017) was based on the idea that "preparing teacher candidates for the profession involves empowering individual and collective voices and fostering the development of enlightened and engaged citizens whose actions achieve social and political change" (p. 27), but actions in this course were limited to cross-cultural communication. Likewise, the initial TE program studied by Howe (2013) considers GCE as "critically important in light of global warming and other global threats to the environment" (p. 61), while its focus "is the students' evolving notions of global citizenship, cultural diversity and internationalization" (p. 66).
Other programs, like the ones mentioned below, not only focus on the knowledge on global issues and the concept of global citizenship, but also on the development of certain social skills. This is the case, for example, of those proposals that promote empathy and respect for diversity through the use of active methods such as drama pedagogy (Blanks, 2013;McNaughton, 2014) and cross-cultural communication (Harshman & Augustine, 2013;Kopish, 2017). They examine the development of student teachers' understandings of GCE issues, while considering other skills, values, and attitudes toward others. Yet, they rarely pay attention to civic participation in global contexts. At best, they assess preservice teachers' "commitment to future local/global action" (Kopish, 2017). These articles, as well as those only centered in concepts and thinking skills, expect that preservice teachers will be able to apply those ideas/abilities to future real-world contexts. Thus, the notion of GCE as the solution to the most pressing global problems does not necessarily contribute to the promotion of politically engaged pedagogical models.

The Imperative of Preparing Teachers for GCE
Another hidden reasoning and simplification underlying this advocacy of GCE is the following: GCE can solve global problems but if GCE is not solving them is because it is not well implemented. Here, the teacher is the main agent of GCE. That is, the role of the teacher in the implementation of GCE programs is overstated, and therefore, the preparation of teachers for GCE is seen as an imperative in the literature reviewed (see Table 3). As Howe (2014) stated in his defense for GCE-TE programs, "[t]here is hope for the future if enough prospective teachers can experience lessons in GCE and social justice issues" (p. 37). In Bauermeister and Diefenbacher's (2015) words, "[f]or every pre-service teacher who knows how and why to teach sustainability, the world will gain thousands of citizens with the same knowledge and skills" (p. 326). This narrative is remarkably common in the introduction sections of the literature on GCE-TE programs, which often follows the logic that GCE is crucial to address the demands of globalization; GCE is implemented by teachers; thus, preparing teachers for GCE is imperative. This claim is well summarized in how Appleyard and McLean (2011) introduce their GCE-TE program: Perhaps more than ever before, today's teachers are expected to equip students with the knowledge, values, attitudes, and skills required to succeed in an increasingly globalized society [ . . . ] Taking up this challenge, proponents of global citizenship education (GCE) seek to develop students' knowledge and capacities for actively participating as global citizens, with the end goal of creating a more just, peaceful, and democratic world [ . . . ] Given the weight of responsibility placed on today's teachers, these issues warrant careful analysis to inform preservice and in-service professional development for educators. (p. 6) The literature reviewed reflects an underanalyzed belief that globalization demands GCE and the success of GCE depends largely on a new form of preparation and perhaps re-socialization of teachers. As Blanks (2013) states in her GCE-TE proposal, "There is agreement among global educators that equipping pre-service teachers with the tools, conceptual frameworks, and authentic information for teaching with a global perspective is imperative" (p. 3). The formulation is deceptively simple and clear: if society wants GCE, teachers need to educate their students to be global citizens, thus, teachers themselves should also be global citizens. Several GCE-TE proposals are based on the premise that GCE teachers should be global citizens first of all (see, for example, Appleyard & McLean, 2011;Blanks, 2013;Byker, 2016;Guo, 2014;McLean et al., 2006;Tichnor-Wagner et al., 2016). The role of TE in GCE is overemphasized and justified through pragmatic reasoning. This logic is also present in GCE-TE empirical studies and in many works dedicated to theoretical debates and model proposals (see Table 3). See, for example, the following quote within Darji & Lang-Wojtasik (2014) GCE-TE model: In this paper we reflect on the role of globalization within teacher education, and on how this relates to our own understanding of education. Education is the most important tool in national and international development. Its aim is to achieve overall development and enlightenment of the mind, broaden the vision, and build character, which can be beneficial to the individual him/herself and to the society and the nation. To achieve this aim, the roles of teachers and teacher educators are very important. Teacher education is the "brain" of all educational disciplines, as it delivers education to train prospective teachers. (p. 50) The problem is that, instead of paying attention to the difficulties teachers usually face when implementing GCE, the tendency in the literature reviewed is just the opposite: listing the virtuous outcomes of including GCE in teacher preparation programs (see, for example, Byker & Marquardt, 2016;Fry et al., 2012;Guo, 2014;McNaughton, 2014). As a result, there are very few studies (Larsen & Faden, 2008;Larsen & Searle, 2017) that focus the attention on-or even recognize-the limitations of the programs analyzed and the difficulties that teachers face. One of those exceptions is the international service learning practicum examined by Larsen and Searle (2017), where the authors clearly acknowledged that "there was little evidence of the student-teachers engaging in social justice actions that contribute in meaningful ways to broader social, structural transformations of power relations between and among individuals, groups and institutions" (p. 202).

The Global Caring Altruistic Teacher
The notion of the "Global caring altruistic" refers to the idea of a citizen as a political subject who will act according to well-established humanitarian and benevolent values. The prominence of this assumption is seen throughout the articles that we examined, but it was particularly evident in those describing/analyzing teacher preparation programs (see Table 4). They tend to exalt the virtues of becoming an ideal global citizen/global citizenship educator, who will follow altruistic ideals instead of homo-economicus instincts of maximizing profits as proposed by classical economic theory. 3 As can be seen in the model developed by Zhao (2010), GCE-TE programs need to promote future teachers: . . . to be aware of the global nature of societal issues, to care about people in distant places, to understand the nature of global economic integration, to appreciate the interconnectedness and interdependence of peoples, to respect and protect cultural diversity, to fight for social justice for all, and to protect planet earth-home for all human beings. In some articles, ideas about caring and altruistic virtues at the global level become evident in the explicit definitions they give of the ideal global citizen and idealized global citizenship educator (see, for example, Bauermeister & Diefenbacher, 2015;Bradbery, 2013;Canlı & Demirtas, 2018;Goh, 2013;Guo, 2014;Jean-Sigur et al, 2016;Lee et al., 2011;Tate, 2011;Zhao, 2010). The following definition provided by an empirical GCE-TE study in its conclusion section is very representative of this: The global teacher could be defined as a global citizen and a universal teacher who possesses the qualifications and competencies required by globalization, knows about global changes and developments and improves herself or himself accordingly. In a more detailed definition, global teacher could be defined as a teacher who is open for innovations, follows changes and developments, adapts to these changes and developments, adopts these changes and developments, and improves herself or himself based on these developments, has technological and computational competence, possesses universal education-instruction qualifications, is open to differences, is a global citizen with universal thinking, adapts to universal values, adopts the values of her or his own culture, is productive, contributes to education-instruction, possesses active and participative learning approach, shares knowledge, is objective and a role model for the society. (Canlı & Demirtas, 2018, p. 92) We highlight this lengthy quote because it shows that the subject, either the global citizen or the global teacher, is a rational actor whose altruistic beliefs and thoughts are the main drivers of his or her behavior. The view of the teacher in training that underlies behind these discussions is frequently a portrait of a "passive receptor of a list of good cosmopolitan behaviors" (Rizvi & Beech, 2017, p. 128). Another excessively all-knowing altruistic definition of the global citizen might be found in Tate's (2011) reflections about TE in the context of globalization. As Tate (2011) stated, We need people to know what is actually happening on our planet, to other people, to other species, and to the ecosystems that sustain us all; to experience reverence, respect, and sense of responsibility for other and for the natural world; to know how to think critically and creatively and to evaluate all information intelligently; to appreciate that their lives have the capacity to make a difference through their individual choices, their work, and their activism; to have the passion and tools to successfully solve problems. (p. 304) Another interesting trend is the assumption that preservice teachers will be willing to develop an ideal GCE in their classes by being aware of global issues. As Larsen and Searle (2017) pointed out in their analysis of an international experience within a TE program, "The learning that students engaged in about global issues such as homelessness and poverty provokes a desire in a handful of students to integrate global perspectives into their own teaching" (p. 201). Even if they include active learning activities in their proposals, the focus is still on knowledge and cognitive skills. See, for example, Howe's (2014) description of a Global Citizenship elective course in Japan: In this class, students learned about various global issues such as poverty, human rights, peace and conflict, and sustainable development. The course was designed to foster students' 21st century skills (critical thinking, creativity, and multiliteracies) through student-centered activities including group discussions, participatory workshops, role-playing, and presentations. After one year, students' global awareness grew drastically, and they were enlightened as global citizens. (p. 35) This attention on student teachers' knowledge becomes also evident in the importance given to how they define GCE. For instance, one of the objectives of the GCE-TE project advocated by McLean et al. (2006) "aims to expand the teacher candidates' understanding of global citizenship" (p. 4). Likewise,  explains that her "goal as a teacher educator [is] to introduce the multiple, contested nature of global citizenship to teacher candidates and challenge them to reflect on their own notions of global citizenship" (p. 27). Therefore, the two overarching goals of her elementary social studies methods course are "1) to assist teacher candidates to examine various discourses on global citizenship and develop self-reflective conceptual lenses of GCE, and (2) to assist teacher candidates to develop confidence as global citizenship educators" (p. 28). Similarly, in the GCE-TE course analyzed by Guo (2014), the first three topics (out of nine) developed were "1) Introduction to global citizenship and GCE, 2) Goals and objectives of education for global citizenship? and 3) Key concepts and themes in global citizen education" (p. 5). Also, the workshop based on drama pedagogy proposed by Blanks (2013) highlights that "teachers must first be aware of the concept of global citizenship" (p. 3). Accordingly, "[t]he first activity in the workshop was for participants to define global education and GCE" (p. 8).
Thus, these proposals tacitly accept that having a complex understanding of the concept of GCE is crucial to be a global citizenship educator. However, it should not be forgotten that, although teachers show a better understanding of GCE after GCE-TE programs Appleyard & McLean, 2011;Blanks, 2013;Guo, 2014;McLean et al., 2006), that does not necessarily mean that they have become more engaged global citizens or that the optimism that these programs apparently inspire will last long. This supposition might have also guided research on GCE-TE, considering the attention that has been paid to preservice teachers' perceptions on global citizenship in the empirical studies analyzed (see, for example, Carr et al., 2014;Günel & Pehlivan, 2016;Holden & Hicks, 2007;Kayışoğlu, 2016;Yuen & Grossman, 2009). Indeed, just one of these empirical investigations studied trainee teachers' civic participation experiences together with their perceptions about global citizenship (Holden & Hicks, 2007). Some of them even concluded that most preservice teachers interviewed emphasize the characteristics that a global citizen should have, "instead of explaining purely the concept" (Günel & Pehlivan, 2016, p. 58). As Bauermeister and Diefenbacher (2015) wished, "Our ultimate goal is to guide students to build healthier, more resilient communities by applying what they have learned to real-world situations" (p. 330). Therefore, it is implicitly assumed that students' future political behaviors will be honest and disinterested, emerging from the application of rational concepts. In other words, the students will become global altruistic citizens.

Discussion
It is undeniable that in the GCE-TE works reviewed here, there is a deliberate attempt to go beyond narratives of nationally bound membership and to overcome the limitations of prior civic education proposals. However, we found that what we can call mainstream GCE-TE discourse perpetuates romanticized perspectives of CE. Beyond the differences in the conceptual frameworks used, the mainstream trend was to frame GCE as a redemptive educational solution to global problems. This civic redemptive discourse overestimates the power of GCE with problematic pedagogical implications. Among the most relevant in our analysis, this discourse 1. Increases the risk of blaming educators for not achieving the explicit goals of GCE by accentuating the many benefits of GCE and neglecting the difficulties that teachers face when implementing its lofty goals. A more effective civic education pedagogical model will require to pay more attention to the existing educational inequalities and barriers and how TE programs actually understand and navigate the inherent tensions related to the complex processes associated with globalization, as some authors have previously advised (Yemini, 2017). 2. Promotes an unrealistic idea of professional educators: Mainstream GCE-TE discourse encourages future teachers to embrace a redemptive narrative model of pedagogical rationality based on altruistic, disembodied cognition, and overly Pollyannaish ideals. This narrative tends to place future teachers as "passive receptors of a list of good cosmopolitan behaviours" (Rizvi & Beech, 2017, p. 128) and favors top-down pedagogical practices disconnected from students' everyday experiences. Given the idealized prototype of professional educators that GCE-TE literature encourages, it is not surprising that many studies have found that teachers usually lack the confidence and pedagogical skills to implement GCE, although those educators consider this model of civic education relevant (Carr et al., 2014;McLean et al., 2006;Reimer & McLean, 2009;Robbins et al., 2003). 3. Overlooks the importance of emotion and lived experiences in civic learning: Our analysis shows that mainstream GCE-TE literature overemphasizes the value of knowing and defining what global citizenship entails. When ignoring the importance of participating in political activities (Biesta, 2007), of belonging to social groups (Achen & Bartels, 2016), and of considering students' intuitive understandings of civic life (Castro, 2013), it is very likely that these GCE-TE discourses are promoting excessively impractical GCE models. 4. Minimizes the social and public dimensions in civic education: Mainstream GCE-TE literature promotes an "entrepreneurial self" able to respond to the neoliberal rational, with each individual responsible for themselves and the future for all (Arnold, 2016;Hartung, 2017;Peters, 2001) as a means of solving global problems Hartung, 2017). As previously shown, critical GCE scholars argue that mainstream discourses of GCE's emphasis on self-determination and individualized active citizenship performs as a technology of subjection that minimizes the responsibilities of government and the public sphere.
What cannot be ignored is that the simple formulation of an idealized GCE framing generates a potent narrative that inspires both scholars and educators. GCE becomes a renewed contemporary version of pedagogical redemptive salvation: the process through which the student (or in this case, the teacher in training) becomes the cosmopolitan citizen, whose reason produces freedom and inclusion (Popkewitz, 2009). We hope that this review provides evidence that developing a more effective and socially just GCE model requires understanding that the consolidation of any given identity, be it "personal," "national," or "communitarian," is always an "educationally" unfinished project and an unsolvable tension. We do not ignore the relevance of civic and pedagogical actions at the individual level, but our review also shows that without paying attention to the social and public dimensions and to the civic demands for government interventions addressing the environmental crisis and the multiple and intersecting inequalities defining contemporary societies, the mainstream GCE cannot deliver on its lofty promises. Perhaps and ironically, those governments and international organizations which are promoting the mainstream version of GCE are the actors who most need to learn how to behave as global citizens.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD
Marta Estellés https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6162-3875 Notes 1. While several studies seem to point to a positive correlation between education and citizenship (Hahn, 1999;Tonge et al., 2012;Torney-Purta & Amadeo, 2003), many others have highlighted the vagueness of that association (Kam & Palmer, 2011;Lopes et al., 2009;Persson, 2014). 2. We use the notion of "neoliberal regime" to refer to the growing reliance on market rules not only for organizing the economic sector but also political, social, and educational areas. Neoliberalism is not a new phenomenon. It has been understood as a loosely coupled set of ideas and principles during the Thatcher (the United Kingdom) and Reagan (the United States) governments in the 1980s. It is by now a more clearly articulated explicit model of disengagement of public government agencies from any collective responsibility for social welfare. This transfer from collective obligations to entrepreneurial individualism has substantially impacted the educational sector. A central feature of the neoliberal argument applied to education systems is that schools must bring their policies and practices in line with the importance of knowledge as a form of production. Neo-liberal educationalists largely blame public schools, state-monopoly, and "producer capture" for economic decline. They argue educational reform must be responsive to the postindustrial labor market and the needs of a restructured global economy (Hursh, 2018).

See the discussions of Nobel Laurate in economy Richard
Thaler about the problems of "Homo-Economicus" as the only model or rationality. See also Nussbaum (2013).