This article focuses on the relationship between development education/global education and
education for sustainability. A short introduction describes the current use of the term global
education and the different groups working and competing within this area in the development
field. In the first part, the history of the concept of global education is outlined. The authors
describe the conceptual shifts from Third World pedagogy to development education to global
education. In the second part, the current conceptual debate within the global-education discourse
itself is described. The relationship between the concepts of global education and education for
sustainability is reflected on in the third part. Finally, the current challenges for the implementation
in practice, for the conceptual debate, and for the research agenda in the field of global education
are outlined.
Introduction
Since 1995, the concept of global education has been a topic of discussion within the
German-speaking development discourse area. The emergence of this concept can be
considered as a reaction to the deconstruction of the notions of over-development
and under-development no longer being able to be thought of as two separated,
disconnected conditions.
The term Third World pedagogy has become obsolete. The German term Entwick-
lungspdagogik, that means development education, although constitutive for the
Zeitschrift fr Entwicklungspdagogik (a journal for development education and
international education research, which was founded in 1978), could not establish itself
in the same way in the German-speaking context as it did in the Anglophone area.
Today, the concept of global education is both established, yet criticised by the propo-
nents of education for sustainability because, they argue, it hinders the integration of
Action-theory-based approaches
The characteristics of global education in respect to an action-theory-based paradigm
are split into five principles by a paper from German developmental NGOs (VENRO,
2000):
(1) The model of global education is that of a future-orientated development. The
underlying anthropology is to promote the emancipation of individuals, their
capability to participate and their self-competence (ibid.). The normative basis of
global education is the model of human development and social justice and the
solidarity for those who suffer under the globalisation process (VENRO, 2000,
p. 11). Development in this concept is understood as an intentional driven
process. The hidden assumption is that people having the right awareness may
act in a right way.
(2) The objectives of global education are not only the problems of the Third World,
but also global connections and the understanding of the interconnections of the
immediate local actions with the global context. This further means the recogni-
tion of the relativity of ones own cultural identity and the ability to change
perspectives (VENRO, 2000, p. 10). The assumption is that things may be
understood in their interconnectedness being located in the local.
(3) The methods of global education are manifold, holistic and participatory. For
example, encouraging learners to change perspectives on issues aim to make
complexity more transparent. The exploration of the local, sensory experience
and critical media education are seen as parts of global education which should
also provide positive cultural and creative access to the so-called Third World
and thereby take the current experience of the learners as a starting point (ibid.).
The educational objective of global education is the:
strengthening of self-determined learning and the capability to shape world society: It is
the objective of global education to support people in recognizing globality, in using their
capabilities and opportunities in order to orientate themselves within social and economic
development, as well as in orientating both individual and social ways to lead a life with
open and reflective values. Global education aims to support both individual and collective
competence to act in the name of worldwide solidarity (ibid.).
System-theory approaches
is far less funding which, in addition, may be used for project-related activities only.
For that reason, the question of how to address the concept of sustainability is not
only a conceptual debate but has to do with access to funding instruments. For as
long as the sector of environmental matters is recognizably better equipped than the
sector of development or global education in Germany, the embodiment of the
concept of education for sustainability is more likely to be linked to the first
mentioned sector (Asbrand & Lang-Wojtasik, 2002b).
Aside from these problems, however, the two ideas have stimulated each other
conceptually over recent years. The conceptual merit of the debate on education for
sustainable development has been to raise the issue of competencies and skills.
Although there was a debate on competencies in the context of global education
before (as in Scheunpflug & Schrck, 2002), this was rather exceptional and had only
little effect. Instead, the BLK 21 programme and its concept made sure that efforts
to combine global education with the acquisition of competence received clear prom-
inence. As a result, the debate about competencies in the area of global education was
intensified (see Rost, 2004; Wegimont, 2004). Especially around the context of fair
trade, the focus on competences has strengthened the education-based concept of
this particular approach (see Asbrand, 2003, 2004), thus dealing with complexity and
with simultaneity of concreteness and abstractness in terms of content and form of
fair trade and the various possibilities of learning situations.
At the same time, criticism by representatives of global education inspired the
supporters of education for sustainability to integrate issues on global social justice
(see de Haan & Seitz, 2001). The merit of global education to the discourses of educa-
tion for sustainability is the widening of the perspectives on global issues. Since the
Earth Summit on sustainable development in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 there is consensus
that the only way to protect the environment is to face the challenges from a global
perspective. One of the crucial distinctions of the paradigm of sustainability is to take
worldwide justice into consideration. Environmental protection in the sense of sustain-
ability always has to take the complexity of a globalised world into account. That is
why education for sustainability needs the perspective of global educationotherwise
it remains environmental education, regardless of the complexity of a globalised world.
On the whole, the concept of education for sustainability has brought about a
dialogue in the German-speaking context between environmental education and
global education over the past few years that has contributed to the clarification and
strengthening of both concepts.
Challenges
Finally, the most important challenges of global education are outlined:
(1)Challenges in research
First it has to be noted that research in the field of global education is underdeveloped.
Empirical research is missing in the field of global learning processes, from the
40 A. Scheunpflug and B. Asbrand
(2)Challenges in practice
A remaining challenge within school practice is the issue of institutional establishment.
So far, global education in Germany has played an important role neither in teacher
education nor in further trainingand the intensification of this study field in
university teaching is a necessity. With regard to school itself, current implementation
in curricula is not sufficientwhat is further needed is the adequate representation of
global education in terms of school books and teaching material. The project
Transfer 21 works intensively in this field. Right now, a task force is developing new
guidelines on global education for the Standing Conference of the Ministers of
Education and Cultural Affairs of the Lnder in the Federal Republic of Germany
(Kultusministerkonferenz). It remains to be seen which impetus evolves from this
approach with regard to the implementation of global education in schools.
For a not particularly well-established field such as global education, within the
school context, the topical debate on educational standards and competencies in
Germany is of great importance. Competencies can be understood as a relationship
Global education and education for sustainability 41
between knowledge and skills. They enable us to cope with different situations
(Klieme, 2004, p. 13) or as the ability to successfully meet complex demands in a
particular context (Rychen & Salganik, 2003, p. 2). In 2003, the Organisation for
Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) identified key competencies for
personal, social and economic well-being. They defined three categories of compe-
tencies: interacting in socially heterogeneous groups; acting autonomously; and using
tools interactively. It is important to know that each of these competencies implies
the mobilisation of knowledge, cognitive and practical skills, and social and behav-
ioural components including attitudes, emotions, and values and motivations
(Rychen & Salganik, 2003, p. 2). However, the shift of curricula towards output-
orientated performance evaluations is a significant challenge for the newly established
contents of global education. This shift is difficult to accept especially for NGOs
which want to get support from schools and students. In the last ten years NGOs have
had more possibilities to work in schools, and some of them have not yet accepted
that their role is not to collect money from children and to inform them about their
work, but to contribute to the competences of young people to deal with the
challenges of the future.
Up to now, the contents of global education have not even in international
comparative studies such as the international Civic Education Study (sterreich,
2002)received much consideration in common performance evaluations. The
extent to which Rosts study on competence (2004) will have provided future-
orientated impetus remains to be seen. In the last few years there has been intensive
debate about raising the quality of global education in NGOs (Hartmeyer & Leber,
2003, for the European context, OLoughlin & Wegimont, 2003). While there
appears to be consensus across the German education research community about the
need for more evaluation studies focusing on the quality of global education, discus-
sions remain about the role of pre-defined learning standards in raising and monitor-
ing quality. For example, some parts of funding from the protestant churches in
Germany are now related to compulsory evaluation and standards of quality. There
is still a lot of work needed to feed back the results of evaluation into the daily work
of organisations.
Within the fields of youth work outside formal education, and adult education and
the activities of developmental NGOs, the issue of funding structures will be of great
importance throughout the next few years. Contrary to the environmental education
sectorin which multi-layered funding instruments by, for instance, the Federal
Environmental Agency (Umweltbundesamt) and the German Federal Environmen-
tal Foundation (Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt) are at hand (see Bundesministe-
rium fr Bildung und Forschung, 2001)there are, within the context of global
education, only a few, financially weak funding programmes for NGOs as well as for
schools and other institutions made available by the churches and the Federal
Ministry of Economical Cooperation and Development (ibid.). Better financial
support for the sector and clearer guidelines for funding would be an important
improvement for the field of global education. Further training is required for the staff
developing NGO sector.
42 A. Scheunpflug and B. Asbrand
- The need for reflection exists in connection with the very term development
which is so crucial to this concept. Notions and concepts of development have
changed and shifted. The idea of realizing justice through development, for
instance, is deeply rooted within the discourse of post-war times. Because of
globalisation it has become harder to identify the origins of injustice and to
identify an adequate concept of development. Since the United Nations confer-
ence in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, it has become evident that the North can no
longer serve as a model for development in the South. The objective, rather, is
to revise ecologically harmful trends. In this process of a radically changing
notion of development which considers changes in the North to be unavoidable
and, at the same time, becomes textually more differentiated and complex, the
underlying understanding of development-related educational processes within
the context of global education changes as well.
These challenges may be better tackled by cooperation between protagonists of
global learning, people dealing with environmental education and those dealing with
education for sustainability than by concurrence between the different roots of ESD.
Note
The quotations in this article from reference works in German are the translations of the authors of
the article and/or the Editors, unless otherwise indicated.
Notes on Contributors
Dr Annette Scheunpflug is Professor of Education at the University Erlangen-
Nrnberg in Germany. Her research is focused on global education, interna-
tional and intercultural education, educational anthropology and quality in
education. She is a member of the advisory board of the German Ministry of
Economic Cooperation and Development and editor of a German journal on
international educational research and development education (ZEP ).
Dr Barbara Asbrand is a research fellow at the University Erlangen-Nrnberg in
Germany. Her research is focussed on the quality of education and global, inter-
cultural and interreligious education. Currently she is working on a research
project about young people and globalisation. She is member of the board of ZEP
and of the board of the intercultural education division of the German associa-
tion of educational research. Email: Barbara.Asbrand@ewf.uni-erlangen.de
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Global education and education for sustainability 45