Mapping Critical Global Citizenship Education in Spanish Schools (2021)
IP: Renée DePalma
Other members of the research team: María Barba Núñez, Laura Cruz López, Alba Patricia Digón Regueiro, Ana Lampón Gude, Rosa María Méndez García, Araceli Serantes Pazos, Verónica Varela Verdía, María José Caride Delgado.
Collaborating organisation: Solidaridad Internacional Galicia
Funding organisations: European Educational Research Association (EERA) and Global Education Network Europe (GENE)
Amount of funding: €14,907.65
This project extends the work of the previous project, of developing a Map of experiences of Global Citizenship Education, to the national level. In previous projects, we identified two general trends:
1) ECG practice in the primary classroom tends to be structured as short-term interventions led by external agents; and
2) these initiatives are less likely to be included in the official curriculum, so they are seen as special extracurricular activities that can be reduced or even eliminated if there is not enough time to “cover” the required curriculum.
Therefore, we aim to support primary school teachers in seeking collaboration with external specialists (NGOs and subject matter experts), whilst maintaining their central role in the design of ECG projects. Given that teaching is expected to follow the state-mandated curriculum, the project aims to help teachers find ways to simultaneously achieve both ECG and curricular objectives, thus reducing the likelihood that the former may be abandoned when covering the required content takes priority.
The project includes two central elements that aim to address these objectives:
1) Mapping – By adapting the Galician pilot map to the national level, we hope to support professionals in extending and developing this network of practices across the rest of Spain, and
2) Interviews – By interviewing staff from NGOs, primary school teachers and specialists in teaching mathematics, science and language from the 17 autonomous communities, we hope to identify existing relevant practice, facilitate its inclusion in the map, link the practice to the official curriculum in these areas and explore possibilities for designing new initiatives.