Global Citizenship Education with Picture Books in English Language Learning

1.1 Definition of Global Citizenship Education

Global citizenship education (GCE or GCED) is a form of civic education that involves students’ active participation in projects that address global issues of a social, political, economic, or environmental nature. The Global Citizenship Foundation defines GCE as “a transformative, lifelong pursuit that involves both curricular learning and practical experience to shape a mindset of care for humanity and the planet, and to equip individuals with global competencies to undertake responsible actions aimed at forging more just, peaceful, secure, sustainable, tolerant and inclusive societies” (https://www.globalcitizenshipfoundation.org/about/global-citizenship-education). Its two main pillars are the development of global consciousness, the moral or ethical aspect of global issues, and of global competences, the skills needed to enable learners to participate in projects which aim to have a transformational impact in society.

Global citizenship education is a new name for a familiar concept that emerged following the end of the Second World War as European governments met with the aim of rebuilding their education systems once peace had been restored. The establishment of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) by the UN General Assembly on 16 November 1945 was designed to “encourage the intellectual and moral solidarity of mankind” through education. Key moments that have since helped to shape the evolution of an international perspective in education include the 1948 UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the 1959 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), the 1960 Convention against Discrimination in Education, the 1974 Recommendation on Education for International Understanding, Co-operation and Peace and Education relating to Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, the 1994-1995 Declaration and Integrated Framework of Action on Education for Peace, Human Rights and Democracy (ICE), the 2012 Global Education First Initiative (GEFI) for access to quality education for all children, the 2000 United Nations Millennium Declaration and adoption of the Millennium Development Goals, and the 2015 adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).¹ Across this timeline, UNESCO and other international organisations have recommended policy frameworks and promoted curricular initiatives for peace education, civic education, international education, social justice education, intercultural education, inclusive education – different concepts that share a common recognition of the important role education plays in sustaining democratic principles and democratic participation.

The underlying premises of GCE remain acutely relevant today and are seen as a defence against the rise of violence, racism, sexism, ethnocentrism, extremism, xenophobia, discrimination, and intolerance of all kinds. The growing heterogeneity in schools since the late-twentieth century underlines the importance of learning to live together in increasingly diverse, complex, interconnected, and democratic societies that aim to promote justice and peace, social responsibility and the development of critical awareness and civic engagement (c.f. Banks 2017; Reysen/Katzarska-Miller 2013; Stoner/Tarrant/Perry/Gleason/Wadsworth/Page 2019; Surian/Berbeglia/Delrio/Vanoni 2018). Global consciousness and competences are more important than ever as challenges arising from conflict-induced displacement and migration, the climate crisis, and a surge in populist beliefs and policies are challenging democratic principles in many societies (Dryden-Peterson 2020). As noted by Parejo, Molina-Fernández and González-Pedraza (2021), education systems today are called upon to address complex problems and interrelated phenomena through an approach which favours deep understanding and engagement with global issues on multiple levels, rather than proposing apparently simple and quick solutions to isolated phenomena.

The overarching aim of GCE – to empower students to “act as competent and effective democratic citizens” (Council of Europe 2018: 37) – is not only concerned with helping them acquire technical knowledge related to political institutions and processes, but also in developing their ability for “effective and constructive interaction with others, thinking critically, acting in a socially responsible manner and acting democratically” (European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice 2017: 9). To this end, the Council of Europe (2018) developed a Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture (RFCDC) to support education systems in ensuring that learners are given opportunities to develop both a civic mindset and a set of competencies for democratic participation. This process implies that young people acquire the knowledge, attitudes, and skills to act as citizens who understand and support democratic values, including human dignity and human rights, cultural diversity, justice, fairness, equality, and the rule of the law (Council of Europe 2018: 38).

1.2 The UN 2030 Agenda and Global Citizenship Education

A key articulation of global citizenship in international policy frameworks is found in the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), notably in target 4.7, “Education for sustainable development and global citizenship”, of SDG 4, “Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”. UNESCO’s Education 2030 Agenda and Framework for Action mandates the fostering of education for global citizenship through the development of the skills, values and attitudes that enable citizens to lead healthy and fulfilled lives, make informed decisions, and respond to local and global challenges through education for sustainable development (ESD) and global citizenship education (GCED) (2016: 8).

To this end, UNESCO proposes a model of global citizenship education that adopts a multi-layered approach that involves: (1) learning critical thinking and developing understanding and reflection on local and international issues; (2) developing a sense of belonging and fostering values such as empathy, solidarity, and respect for diversity; (3) forming responsible, tolerant, and peaceful citizens. These key learning objectives are based on three interrelated domains of learning: cognitive, emotional, and participatory. Schools are called on to provide civic education through which students can learn how to create a better world from a holistic approach that integrates these three domains. Educational institutions can promote global citizenship by fostering in educators and learners a recognition that they belong to a local-global nexus of interconnected lives and can use their knowledge and skills to contribute towards the betterment of local and translocal communities.

Drawing on Singleton’s (2015) “Head-Heart-Hands (3H)” model of transformative learning, with its emphasis on action-taking as a key dimension of sustainable education, a curriculum for global citizenship education should stimulate young learners’ cognitive, socio-emotional and behavioural engagement with global issues in a holistic way. UNESCO (2015) identifies the key learning outcomes and learner attributes for GCE across these three domains in the following figure.

Fig. 1: Expected learning outcomes and learner attributes in GCE (UNESCO 2015: 29).

The UNESCO guidelines (2015) provide a framework for the implementation of GCE to assist educators in preparing young learners to develop the knowledge and skills needed to assume active roles, both locally and globally, in building more peaceful, tolerant, inclusive, secure, and sustainable societies. It is important that educators work across the three domains of learning, deploying Singleton’s (2015) “Head-Heart-Hands (3H)” model, as detailed below:

1. Cognitive domain – Learners acquire the knowledge and thinking skills necessary to better understand the world and its complexities (e.g. knowledge of local, national and global issues). They also develop their understanding of the interconnectedness and interdependency of shared situations, as well as their critical thinking and analytical skills.

2. Socio-emotional domain – Learners develop a global consciousness, particularly a heightened relational understanding and awareness. They experience a sense of belonging to a common humanity, share values and responsibilities regarding human rights, develop attitudes of empathy, respect, and solidarity with others, and learn to express feelings and reflect on emotions.

3. Behavioural domain – Learners acquire the motivation and willingness to actively engage with issues affecting social justice and sustainability. They learn to channel knowledge and values into concrete actions at the local, national, and global levels, and to develop the skills needed to implement these actions.

1.3 Global citizenship values and learning aims in primary education

How can schools embed GCE values and goals in their curricula? What specific competences are needed by young people for effective participation in a complex, diverse and interconnected world? To assist teachers, UNESCO provides a ‘can do’ list of specific learning aims for lower and upper primary learners, delineated according to broadly defined topics that can be easily embedded across the curriculum regardless of national context (c.f. 2015: 22–28). These objectives take into consideration the three domains of learning as represented by distinct colours in the table below: cognitive (blue); socio-emotional (pink); behavioural (green).

Kenyon and Christoff (2020) note that while incorporating global citizenship education into school curricula is increasingly recognised as important by scholars and international agencies, teachers and schools at times struggle with its implementation due to uncertainty about which disciplines are best suited to GCE. Social Studies is an obvious choice, yet this subject area is often encountered later in schooling and, according to Kenyon and Christoff, the “absence of GCE in these earlier grades is particularly troubling because this is when students are forming their initial ideas about the world around them” (2020: 397).

A powerful way for primary school teachers to address GCE in early learning is by embedding it in language education through a careful selection of children’s picture books which represent a diversity of individuals and groups, are sensitive to a broad range of cultural experiences, and emphasise relations of care between people and the environment (c.f. Brophy/Alleman 2002). An overview of key theoretical and methodological considerations in using picture books for GCE in the context of early English foreign-language pedagogy is presented in the section that follows, along with a framework to guide teachers in the process of selecting suitable books for story-based instruction that incorporates a GCE perspective.

3.1 On the Trapline (2021) by David A. Robertson

On the Trapline recounts how a boy and his grandfather take a long journey from the city to the northern wilderness to visit the trapline where years before the elder’s family had lived off the land, hunting, fishing, and foraging on an island. It explores the deep connection that the Cree moshom and boy have with each other and the land as they visit the former’s boyhood home. It is based upon Robertson’s experience of returning with his own father to the latter’s childhood trapline after a 70-year absence.

The illustrations by Julie Flett evoke a sense of space and wonder as the boy is introduced to places and stories that hold meaning for his family. The drawings depict sparsely populated villages, thick woods, lakes, rocky shorelines, eagles, beaver dams, and camp life in dark, muted colours which seem to seep from the landscape itself: forest green, sky blue, muddy brown, slate grey. The text is spare and surrounded by blank space, allowing the eye to move calmly between words and images, not overwhelming the reader with intersemiotic complexity. A sense of slowness is further enhanced as the grandfather recalls life on the trapline, a remembrance of things past underscored by the presence of Swampy Cree words inserted in the text; this use of Cree vocabulary items slows down the reading and prosodic rhythm, creating space for thoughts and emotions.

Fig. 3: On the Trapline (Robertson 2021: unnumbered)

Appearing at the end of each page, the Cree words act as a summary of key themes that emerge across the story. This position highlights the Cree expressions, giving them a resonance that lingers in the reader’s mind.

Robertson, who is a member of Norway House Cree Nation and a Governor-General award-winning Canadian writer, provides a glossary of eighteen Swampy Cree words and a pronunciation guide at the end of the book. The words appear in the peritext in the same order in which they were presented in the story, thus encouraging readers to review them. Although definitions are integrated into the main text in English, the presence of the Cree words and their repetition in the glossary provide reinforcement, adding to the book’s educational potential. Commenting on his deliberate choice to use Cree words in the text, Robertson explains:

In one sense, I wanted to use Cree as a way to continue to work toward language revitalization, to have our language represented in mainstream literature. The other thing was to display the beauty of the language to both Indigenous and non-Indigenous readers. It also added so much breadth to the emotions, the meaning, the tone of every page. I used the language very carefully and very intentionally. What I love about Cree is that one word can mean so much. Cree is such a beautiful language. (CBC Radio 2021)⁵

When Moshom and the boy finally reach the trapline in the story, the Elder’s eyes light up: “‘That’s my trapline,’ he says. Kīwēw means ‘he goes home’”.

By inviting readers to learn about Cree language and traditions through the intergenerational relationship depicted in the story, the book not only activates the cognitive dimension of intercultural learning but the socio-emotional dimension as well, presenting “different levels of identity” through the boy’s relationship with his grandfather, “different communities people belong to and how these are connected” through traditional indigenous customs depicted, and helping readers cultivate “respect for diversity” through the story characters and the use of Cree words in the text (UNESCO 2015: 31). Moreover, the text challenges the one language/one culture/one nation paradigm by foregrounding the visibility of other cultures and languages in English-language picture books by Canadian authors, inviting critical classroom discussions about multilingualism and multiculturalism.

Daly and Short (2022) warn that the presence of words written in less prestigious languages might be ignored, especially in the context of English-language books given the privileged status English enjoys as a global language. Such potential neglect has negative repercussions for the multilingual and intercultural development of children who must be exposed to diversity to learn that the world is not monolingual or culturally homogeneous on local, national, and global scales. In the Canadian cultural context, where French exists alongside English as an official founding language but where indigenous languages have a minority status due to historical policies of enforced linguistic and cultural assimilation, it is important that narrative representations foster a multidimensional vision of plurilingual and intercultural belonging. Robertson’s book presents an opportunity to “explore representation of peoples and places and the hegemony of English language and ‘western’ ways of seeing the world”, a GCE learning aim aligned with the English language curriculum (Oxfam 2015: 12).

In addition to its educational potential in enhancing intercultural awareness, Robertson’s book presents opportunities for young readers to develop ecological awareness through the depiction of the natural world and the protagonists’ relationship with the land which changes according to the temporal past and present of the story. The boy finds himself imagining what life was like two generations ago through his grandfather’s stories, a life that appears to be both different from and similar to his life now.

Fig. 3: On the Trapline (Robertson 2021: unnumbered)

This understated exploration of memory, loss and change evokes the close connection with the land and a traditional lifestyle which the grandfather experienced in his youth then lost through colonialization, a traditional way of life which his grandson’s generation has never known.

This confrontation with difference through the moshom’s recalled experience of fishing, trapping, and foraging enables a reflection on the value of nature and healthy ecosystems, helping children think dynamically about ecological relationships or the interconnectedness of different forms of life (c.f. Rule/Atkinson 1994). On the Trapline helps children acquire a deeper respect for nature and understanding of human reliance on natural resources:

We stop to fish on the way back. Moshom’s friend catches lots of fish. Moshom catches some. I almost catch one, but it gets away.

“Why are you so good at fishing?” I ask.

“We used to fish on the trapline too,” he says.

Moshom tells me that we can share. On the trapline everybody shared with everybody else.

Natenamakēwin means “sharing”. (Robertson 2021: unnumbered)

A discourse of environmental sustainability emerges across the story as the grandfather teaches the child about how to be a good custodian to the land and share its resources with others. By facilitating a discussion of how human choices and actions affect other people and the planet, Robertson’s picture book is an effective tool in guiding young readers towards ecological literacy. As Parsons (2005: 220) explains, “Stories push back the walls of the classroom, providing the experience and relationship with which effective environmental education begins”.

3.2 I Lost My Talk (2019) by Rita Joe

While the loss of indigenous language and culture is signalled indirectly in On the Trapline, it is the central theme in I Lost My Talk by the acclaimed Canadian poet Rita Joe, of the Whycocomagh First Nation, who was a revered Mi’kmaw Elder and is considered the Poet Laureate of the Mi’kmaq nation. Her well-known poem, “I Lost My Talk”, is a hypotext for this 2019 edition, illustrated for the first time by Pauline Young and published as a picture book for young readers. By seeking to reclaim visibility for voices and traditions that were systematically erased, the book delivers an explicit message concerning the need for indigenous language revitalization as part of a process of reparations for the colonial legacy.

The poem and picture book reference the author’s first-hand experience in the Shubenacadie Residential School in Nova Scotia where she lived from ages 12 to 16, forced to speak English instead of Mi’kmaq, an Eastern Algonquian language. The story explores what it means to lose your language – that is, to be forbidden to use it – and to have to re-learn it at a later stage, drawing attention to a dark period in Canadian history when indigenous languages and traditions were subjected to cultural eradication through the system of residential schooling. First Nations’ children were forcibly removed from their homes and sent to institutions administered by the government and the Catholic Church where assimilation to Christianity and the English language was enforced. Documented cases of physical, sexual and psychological abuse of indigenous children in residential schools, as well as the horrific discovery of mass graves at school sites, are part of a shameful and painful colonial legacy in Canada which has prompted calls for legal redress for survivors and First Nations communities.

The title of Joe’s book is poignantly accompanied by a colourful image on the cover illustration by Pauline Young which juxtaposes the picture of an indigenous girl in traditional dress in bright yellow with that of a schoolgirl donning the standard short haircut and residential school uniform in a faded brown tone, emphasising the link between language and identity. The central theme of linguistic and cultural erasure is also conveyed through the orange end papers which repeat the title “I lost my talk” framed by chalk drawings which indicate the symbolic systems of representation that have been lost through enforced use of the English language in schooling. This message is repeated on the first page of the picture book with the accompanying text, “Which you took away”. The subsequent pages further evoke the absent ‘you’ – the interlocutor (i.e. colonizer) responsible for linguistic and cultural erasure – as the narrator is forced to “create like you”. The text ends with a direct appeal, “Let me find my talk”, which conveys the need for aboriginal language preservation and strengthening, the book’s main theme.

Fig. 4: I Lost My Talk (Joe 2019: unnumbered)

Word-image interactions can change over the course of a picture book, giving rise to different types of textual-visual interanimations across a story, and the teacher needs to provide contextualisation and disambiguation to guide children’s understanding. Throughout Joe’s book, the language is simple and straightforward, and the images reinforce the story’s message by offering visual scaffolding that supports textual meaning. As Moya Guijarro (2014: 68) explains, concurrence between image and text requires less inference from readers since the intermodal input is symmetrical, which in turn lightens the cognitive load; in other instances, when the verbiage and image do not fully concur, scaffolding is necessary to help support young readers’ understanding of the story. In I Lost My Talk, the focus of the teacher’s mediation is in providing contextual and cultural details to support learners’ comprehension – What has been lost? Where? When? Why? How? – rather than linguistic disambiguation since the language is simple and straightforward, and the images reinforce the story’s message by offering visual scaffolding that supports textual meaning. Furthermore, a two-page “Short History of Residential Schools” is presented along with an archival photograph as peritext at the end, offering additional information teachers can use to guide readers’ understanding of the colonial legacy of residential schooling in Canada. The text and peritextual elements assist the process of “social memorialization” (Hoffmann 2018), fostering cultural memory through the representation of an occluded chapter in contemporary Canadian history.

Schools and teachers must decide on the best time and pedagogical approach for teaching historically difficult subjects such as the abuse of indigenous populations and genocide. In this case, teachers need to evaluate what kind of contextual information to provide about European contact and colonization of the Americas based on the cognitive and emotional maturity of learners, but picture books such as Joe’s and Robertson’s are valuable multimodal resources to assist them in addressing difficult themes, helping learners make text-to-life and life-to-text connections through literature (c.f. Sipe 2008). Byram stresses the need to engage with controversial topics when selecting content for GCE, urging teachers to take risks and not shy away from “disquieting elements” by maintaining neutrality in curricular choices (ICEPELL Conference 2022). As José Botelho and Kabakov Rudman note in their analysis of multicultural children’s literature for educational contexts, “a passive stance is not neutral” but rather elides the power dynamics and forms of structural inequality present in society (2009: 266–67). Exploring values, beliefs, and experiences of different groups of people and other ways of seeing and knowing is crucial for widening the range of cultural representation in the language classroom.

Drawing on texts and thinking from a range of cultures and traditions by selecting books that intentionally address themes of diversity and social justice can help teachers stimulate conversations with learners which can deepen their intercultural understanding (c.f. Ghosn 2001, 2010). Bland (2016: 43–44) argues that identities which have been misrepresented, marginalised, hidden or absent from texts must be made visible through an inclusive pedagogy: teachers must be aware of ideological issues underpinning cultural representation and misrepresentation/erasure in children’s literature and carefully select texts that metonymically represent a full spectrum of diversity. Sims Bishop (1990) similarly warns that the effects of marginalisation or erasure are debilitating on children’s psycho-social development: all children need to see themselves reflected in a positive way in the books they read. She maintains that the silencing and invisibility of certain socio-cultural groups in children’s books has a negative impact not only on children who identify with that group but also on children belonging to a dominant group who are denied the opportunity to understand the multiculturalism that is part of their world (1990: ix). Giving voice to occluded stories in the English language classroom is, therefore, an important way of re-centring narrative to reflect a more accurate and complete cultural memory.