Phenomena such as migration, trade, war and peace have been the most important instruments of intercultural interaction (ErdoÄŸan and Kaya, 2015). However, in no period of human history, individuals from different countries and socioeconomic backgrounds have ever been so close to each other as they are today (Calle Díaz, 2017). One of the most important reasons of this convergence is the phenomenon called information age which is also named as ‘information society’, ‘post-industrial society’ or ‘IT society’ in which the information is evolved and its amount has tremendously increased. The second reason is the utilization of products produced or transformed by information society in science and technology and redesign of daily life accordingly. And the third reason is the economic motivation to transfer all these technological products to all parts of the world. The rapid change starting from the 1990s led way to an increase in human productivity, and a deep structural shift in social, cultural and political areas. As a result, globalization emerged and developed in this interactive setting.

While globalization is a financial and political phenomenon from one point of view (Li and Zhou, 2015) to another notion, it consists of information and communication technologies, international movements and migration, constitution of global societies, lingo-cultural and ideological convergences and formation of mutual symbols and images in addition to its financial dimensions (Grebosz and Hak, 2015). With the process of globalization which means political, financial, social and cultural integration of the world, social, financial and geographical distances shortened and interdependency between nations increased.

One of the most important dynamics of globalization is the existence of global citizen individuals who are adapted to the process of globalization. Citizenship in its modern sense emphasizes individuals demanding their rights from the state not only because of their nationality but also because of their rights as human beings (Özel, 2007). In this new sense of citizenship enriched by globalization, it is not enough to have a sense of responsibility to your home country but also it is prominent to have a universal awareness which demands to feel responsible towards all humanity and every single problem of the world (Hicks and Holden, 2007; Kadragic, 2006; Noddings, 2005; Silva, 2014).

Global citizenship training

Educational programs have an important role in training global citizens. It seems crucial to provide global citizenship training programs to all individuals from kindergarten to higher education and lifelong-learning according to specific standards. When the literature is reviewed, it can be seen that the content of globalization training is spread to a wide range of topics. The most focused topics are generally human rights (Hahn, 2005), solving the world’s challenging problems (Banks, 2008), social justice and equity; interdependence; sustainable development; cultural diversity; peace and conflict; population concerns; languages (Hill, 2002) race, gender or social class, and cross national borders (Abowitz and Harnish, 2006).

Globalization training standards are specified by organizations like Oxfam, NCSS, and UNESCO. According to Oxfam, global citizenship training programs must include: knowledge areas such as knowledge of human rights, globalization, social justice and equality, respect for identities and cultural diversity, peace and conflict; skill areas such as critical thinking, empathy, cooperation, communication, reflection, conflict resolution and the ability to overcome uncertainty and complexity; and value and attitude areas such as sense of identity and self-esteem, commitment to social justice and equality, respect for people and human rights, value diversity, concern for the environment and commitment to sustainable development, commitment to participation and inclusion, the belief that people can bring about change (Oxfam, 2015).

According to NCSS, by means of global citizenship education, individuals are expected to comprehend the characteristics of the society they live in, have a perspective of international level problems about environment, poverty, wars, etc., and be able to propose solutions to these problems, and actively participate in the public life (NCSS, 2002).

UNESCO (2014) states that global citizenship requires making connections from national to international and from local to universal. It also expresses that global citizenship training must be regulated in a way to equip individuals with skills and values such as sensitivity to human rights, respect for diversity, empathy, problem-solving equality, justice and conflict resolution. Also, using learner-centred methods like inquiry-based learning and cooperative learning is advised during the process of training. AktaÅŸ et al. (2007) analyzed 24 universities’ global citizenship training programs and found out that the most common content areas are social justice, human rights, self-reflection, unequal global power dynamics, students self-analysis of their place on the earth and the society.

Global citizenship and training of teacher candidates

Raising individuals who are respectful to different cultures, sensitive to the problems of the world and who have the aim of contributing to the world’s common heritage is closely related to both teachers’ professional and individual characteristics and to the reforms made in the teacher training programs. With the rise of globalization, the issue of how teachers can be prepared for these new roles and how they can perform them has been of vital importance. The change of expectations with globalization and educational reforms has also changed paradigms related to schools. This paradigm shift has made it necessary for teacher training institutions to approach their programs in accordance with globalization and global citizenship (Åžahin et al., 2016).

According to the study by Reimer and Mcleans (2009), teacher candidates find topics related to globalization complex and exhaustive. Also, they find their level of knowledge unsatisfactory and they think that the boundaries of these topics are unclear. Education faculties have important roles in raising global citizen individuals. Thus, it seems vital to incorporate teachers into global citizenship training both during their pre-service and in-service teacher training programs. As stated by Guntars Catlaks, “The quality of education will only be as good as the quality of the teacher” (UNESCO, 2014). Teachers cannot be expected to equip their students with knowledge, skills, values and attitudes of global citizens if they are not equipped with such qualities themselves.

When the literature is reviewed, measuring global citizenship level of teacher candidates (Engin and Sarsar, 2015), the qualities and  standards  of  programs  training global citizen teachers (AktaÅŸ et al., 2017; Bates, 2008; Calle Díaz, 2017; Myers, 2006; Wang and Hoffman, 2016), knowledge and perspectives of teacher candidates regarding the concept of global citizenship (Horsley et al., 2005) are the topics studied in this area. Although in a limited scope, giving teacher candidates global citizenship training (Estellés and Romero, 2016) is another studied topic. By means of these training programs and activities, individuals are expected to comprehend the qualities of the society that they live in; to have perspectives and create solutions about poverty, human rights and global issues; and actively participate in non-governmental organizations. Education faculties have an important responsibility in raising individuals possessing an awareness of global citizenship and transferring this awareness to next generations. It is important to supplement higher education programs with global citizenship training and extend these training activities to all programs in order to raise global citizen teachers.

Aim and research questions

The aim of the research is to evaluate the effectiveness of Global Citizenship Training Program (GCTP) prepared for teacher candidates.

Research questions

The primary research questions of the current study are as follows:

(1) Is GCTP effective on teacher candidates’ level of global citizenship competency perception?

(2) Is GCTP effective on teacher candidates’ level of respect for differences?

(3) How do the teacher candidates evaluate the GCTP in their diaries?

 

The mixed research method was used in the current study as it allows integration and interpretation of qualitative and quantitative data. The study was based upon concurrent triangulation model (Creswell, 2003). The single group pre-test-post-test design model makes the quantitative part of the study and participants’ diaries which they wrote at the end of every session and their answers to open-ended questions, which were prepared to evaluate GCTP, make up the qualitative part of the study.

Participants     

Voluntary teacher candidates (32) who are receiving education in the departments of Psychological Counselling and Guidance, Social Sciences Teaching, Primary School Teaching and Science Teaching took part in the research. 18 of them were females and 14 were males. The coding of the teacher candidates participating in the research was arranged from 1 to 32 as TC-1, TC-2…n=32.

Data collection tools

 “Global Citizenship Competency Perception Scale” (GCCPS) and “The Respect of Differences Scale” (RDS) were used as pre-test and post-test data collection tools and participants’ diaries were collected during the whole process. Finally, evaluation forms containing open-ended questions were collected at the end of GCTP.

Global Citizenship Competency Perception Scale (GCCPS)

“GCCPS” developed by Sahin et al. (2016) was used in the study. The Cronbach Alpha Reliability Co-Efficient of the scale is 0.80. By the given coefficient, this single-factor scale consisting of five items can be considered to have a decent reliability coefficient. Confirmatory factor analysis was carried out in order to validate the construct validity of the scale which was obtained from exploratory factor analysis. The results of the statistical analysis were found as RMSEA=0.072, S-RMR=0.048, CFI=0.97, GFI=0.98, and AGFI=0.94.

The Respect of Differences Scale (RDS)           

“The RDS” (Öksüz and Güven, 2012) developed to measure individuals’ levels of respect for differences was used in this study. The scale consisting of 30 articles has three sub-dimensions which are knowledge-based differences, social categorization differences and value differences. Moreover, the Cronbach Alpha Reliability Coefficient of the scale is 0.94. The scale structure obtained from exploratory factor analysis was later confirmed through confirmatory factor analysis. The goodness of fit indexes was found to be at an acceptable level and factor structure obtained from exploratory factor analyses was confirmed (RMSEA=0.07, CFI=0.97, GFI=0.78, AGFI=0.75, NNFI=0.97, and NFI=0.96).

Teacher candidates’ diaries

Teacher candidates were asked to write their comments about the GCTP after each session of the training. 

Open-ended items questionnaire form

At the end of the training program, teacher candidates were given an open-ended items questionnaire form to evaluate GCTP. The form contains the following questions:

(1) What are the effects of your participation in the GCTP on you?

(2) Which activity in the GCTP did you enjoy the most?

(3) What suggestions can you give to improve GCTP?

Data collection and analysis

Skewness coefficient and kurtosis coefficient of Kolmogorow-Smirnow test that belong to the quantitative data gathered from GCCPS and RDS were analyzed. The analysis of the data gathered from both scales were seen to be in compliance with the normality suppositions; paired groups’ t-test was carried out (Büyüköztürk, 2017). In the analysis of the qualitative data acquired from the diaries and the open-ended evaluation questions, descriptive analysis technique  was  utilized.  Research  questions  formed the thematic frame for the descriptive analysis. The findings were processed to this thematic frame and later interpreted (Yıldırım and ÅžimÅŸek, 2016).

Procedures

Needs analysis

At the outset, 80 randomly selected teacher candidates studying at the education faculty were asked: “Do you find yourself enough to be a global citizen individual?” 32 (45%) of the participants responded “yes” and 48 (55%) of them responded “no” to the question. According to this finding, it can be said that the majority of the teacher candidates do not consider themselves enough to be global citizens. The ones that negatively responded to the question were further asked: “why do you think so?” The primary reason was identified as “inadequacy of the courses at the education faculty”. To the question ‘What should be done to increase the perception of global citizenship?’ 52 (65%) of the teacher candidates offered that the objectives and content of the courses at the faculty must be reviewed and courses on global citizenship must be added to teacher training programs.

Specifying the objectives and competencies of the global citizenship training program

At this stage, UNESCO’s Global Citizenship Education criteria were examined. The objectives and learner competencies of the GCTP were specified under the light of these criteria. According to UNESCO (2014), Global Citizenship Education aims to empower learners to engage and assume active roles, both locally and globally, to face and resolve global challenges and ultimately become proactive contributors to a more just, peaceful, tolerant, inclusive, secure and sustainable world. UNESCO (2014) states any Global Citizenship Education should focus on the following learner competencies:

(1) Developing a perception of various levels of identity which leads to creating a shared identity that precedes all personal, cultural, religious, racial differences.

(2) Having a profound knowledge and understanding of prevalent virtues such as equality, justice, dignity and respect.

(3) Developing cognitive skills such as thinking critically, systematically and creatively to be able to distinguish multiple facets of any issue.

(4) Emotional and social skills like empathy and conflict resolution as well as communicational skills to be able to communicate and work harmoniously with people from diverse cultures, backgrounds and viewpoints.

(5) Behavioural skills of working cooperatively and acting responsibly in groups to find universal solutions to universal problems.

Specifying the content and activities of the training program

The content of the training program was created to realize the objectives of the GCTP.      

Articles: Firstly, the article Changing Values and Global Citizenship Education (Kan, 2009) was selected in order to discuss primary issues like ‘What is global citizenship?’ and ‘What are the qualities of global citizens?’ Secondly, Instructional Environment and Teacher Competencies in the Context of Multiculturalism (BaÅŸbay and BektaÅŸ, 2009) was selected to discuss multiculturalism. Lastly, Excellence, Education, and Equality (Ornstein, 2015)  was  selected to inquire the concept of equality.

International conventions: International conventions like “European Convention on Human Rights”, “United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women”, “The Convention on the Rights of the Child”, and “The Kyoto Protocol” were selected to inquire the topics such as human rights, women and children rights and environmental problems.

Books and movies: As literary texts and movies have positive effects on creating an efficient educational atmosphere, decision was made to add books and movies in GCTP. In accordance with this purpose, four academics working at educational sciences department, three academicians working at Turkish language and literature department and 59 teacher candidates were asked to suggest books and movies which can contribute the GCTP. As a result, books: Go Set a Watchma and Animal Farm and movies: The Theory of Everything, My Left Foot, Hidden Figures, Hotel Rwanda, and Serial (Bad) Weddings (Original title: Qu'est-cequ'on a faitau Bon Dieu?) were chosen to be used in the training.

Introducing different cultures and global issues: Within this context, activities involving introducing other cultures, global issues (wars, financial injustice, poverty, environment, etc.) and case scenarios related to discrimination and resolving conflicts took part in the training. Themes and content of GCTP are shown in Table 1.

 

 

Organizing the experiences: UNESCO (2014) suggests using pedagogic approaches and methods like dialogic, inquiry-based, cooperative, engaged learning, conflict resolution, and discussion. In addition to these methods and techniques, active learning strategies, script writing, large and small scale group works, problem-solving and creative drama were used during the implementation of the designed global citizenship training.

Assessment of the procedures

GCTP lasted 13 sessions with the participation of volunteer teacher candidates. “Global Citizenship Competency Perception Scale” and “Respect of Differences Scale” were applied as pre-test and post-test. In addition, the diaries which teacher candidates wrote during the program were collected. In order to evaluate the training, teacher candidates answered the Open Item Questionnaire Form at the end of the training.

 

 

 

 

 

The findings are presented under three main parts: comparison of findings obtained from scales, teacher candidates diaries, and evaluation forms.

Comparison of findings obtained from scales

In order to decide which tests were going to be primarily used to analyze the data in this study, first, whether the dataset had normal distribution or not was analyzed. Whether dataset had normal distribution or not was determined by means of KolmogorovSmirnov test (Kalaycı, 2010). The findings showed that data collected from Global Citizenship Competency Perception Scale and Respect of Differences Scale had a normal distribution.  A  t-test was  carried   out   for   independent samples. The findings are shown in Tables 1 and 2. Primarily, the first research question:  (1) “Is GCTP effective on teacher candidates’ global citizenship competency perception?” was answered. The findings are shown in Table 2.

 

 

Table 2 shows that according to paired sample t-test results, there is a statistically significant difference between pre-test and post-test results of teacher candidates’ perception of global citizenship competencies in favour of post-test results (t(31)=-7.98, p<0.05). It is clear that GCTP has a positive effect on teacher candidates’ global citizenship competency perceptions. Secondly, the second research question “Is GCTP effective on teacher candidates’ level of respect for differences?” was examined and the findings are shown in Table 3.

 

 

Table 3 shows that there is a significant difference between pre-test and post-test results of teacher candidates’ Respect of Differences Scale’s results in favour of post-test results (t(31)=5.77, p<0.05). As a result, it can be said that Global Citizenship Education has a significant  effect  on  teacher  candidates’  level  of respect for differences.

Analyzing teacher candidates’ diaries

“How do the teacher candidates evaluate the GCTP in their diaries?” Teacher candidates’ diaries were examined under the following four main headings: articles’ and documents’ analyses, book analyses, movie analyses, from local to universal different cultures and global problems. The following are findings obtained

Articles and international conventions activity

The article Changing Values and Global Citizenship Education (Kan, 2009) was selected to discuss issues like ‘What is global citizenship?’ and ‘What are the qualities of global citizens?’, the article Instructional Environment and Teacher Competencies in the Context of Multiculturalism (BaÅŸbay and BektaÅŸ, 2009) was selected to discuss ‘What is multiculturalism?’, ‘What are the qualities of the multicultural school environment?, ‘What are the competencies of the multicultural teacher?’ and finally, the article Excellence, Education, Equality (Ornstein, A.C., Pajak, E.F. and Ornstein, S.B. (6th. Ed.)) was selected to discuss the concept of equality in education. Also, “European Convention on Human Rights”, “United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women”, “The Convention on the Rights of the Child”, and “The Kyoto Protocol” were selected to inquire the topics such as human rights, women and children rights and environmental problems. Some chosen quotations from teacher candidates’ diaries about these articles and conventions are as follows:

“The articles that we discussed during the sessions helped me to conceptualize global citizenship, describe and  question  our  differences  in  a  more  detailed  way”

(Teacher Candidates (TC-23, 01.03.2017).

“The things we need to transform multiculturalism to a tradition that will last for many years are educational system and its components such as teachers, administrators, and counsellors. The more we become role models, the more we can raise individuals who are conscious and respectful of differences” (TC-12, 22.02.2017).

 “Multicultural educational system must be flexible enough to include differences; we mustn’t forget that there is a need for the endeavours of developing curricula which are suitable to multiculturalism” (TC-4, 22.02.2017).

 “Is multiculturalism really applicable? I guess the most important problem for this issue is the vagueness of the rules of multiculturalism. I believe that highlighting global peace and universal norms of the society can be a good way to overcome this problem” (TC-19, 22.02.2017).

 “It is clear that there are handicaps of educational systems in the context of equality and justice. Especially child labourers, girls, the poor, immigrant and refugee children face major problems in accessing quality education. These disadvantaged people are surely going to be open to various risks if they can’t have quality education and living standards...” (TC-7, 01.03.2017).

“I believe that the group work activities and discussions which we made during the sessions in which we analyzed international conventions like "European Convention on Human Rights”, “United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women” and “The Convention on the Rights of the Child” affected us very positively. Further carrying out and deepening the topics later in the whole class activities had also great importance for deepening our knowledge” (TC-14, 15.03.2017).

“All international conventions clearly define the rights of children and women. I think the major issue for the violation of these rights seems to be lack of enough social persistence in the application” (TC-27, 15.03.2017).

Book analyses

Harper Lee’s book ‘Go Set a Watchmen’ and George Orwell’s ‘Animal Farm’ were discussed with teacher candidates in small and large groups during the GCTP and the following are some of the comments which teacher candidates’ wrote down in their diaries.

Go Set a Watchman: The book “Go Set a Watchmen” was used as a basis for inquiring the topics race and gender discrimination. The activity aimed to discuss the effects of our surrounding’s economic and sociological situation on the creation of our prejudices. Some quotations from teacher candidates’ diaries on the topic are as follows:

 “...we get our prejudices from our family and society within the process of socialization. Various conditions of the society such as religion, language, ethnicity, financial and geographical condition, being conservative or progressive, and having immigrants or not affects our prejudices. Maycomb town, with its typical characteristics, is a striking example of producing and growing discrimination towards women and different races...” (TC-6, 12.04.2017)

“The book is a satire upon racial discrimination as well as many stereotype biases which the society creates” (TC-13, 12.04.2017).

“...as I was brought up in a family containing plenty of religious, ethnic and ideological variety, the concepts mentioned in the book are pretty familiar to me... Somehow the book reflected my life to me in a mirror and showed me things that I have unwittingly learned so far” (TC-20, 12.04.2017).

 “Prejudice, a dirty word, and faith, a clean one, have something in common: they both begin where reason ends” (p.233). People accept many unreasonable things when these things are a part of their culture and beliefs. I guess I prefer humorously implying that I do not approve them instead of reacting like Scout…” (TC-19, 12.04.2017).

Animal farm: George Orwell’s book “Animal Farm” was read and discussed in the context of discussion questions in order to make teacher candidates express how they see  power,   social   justice,   the   relationship   between oppressor and oppressed and among all these things their own positions in the society as global citizen individuals. One of these questions was “When you think of the characters in Animal Farm, “Are you a pig or a sheep or a horse or a cynical donkey? Which animal do you resemble yourself? Why?” 12 of the teacher candidates resembled themselves to Boxer, 10 of them to Benjamin, 4 of them to Snowball, 2 of them to Muriell the goat and 2 of them to Clover. 2 of the teacher candidates expressed that they did not resemble any of the animals. Some quotations from teacher candidates’ diaries are as follows:

 “....I think the reason why Boxer works so hard is not satisfying rulers, but it is for having something done for future generations. At some point, I believe that I am going to forget about rulers and work only for public benefit. I mean I can do anything to change this system and do my best for the sovereignty of people” (TC-3, 26.04.2017).

“...I am the mare named Clover. I am someone who is aware of what is going on, sometimes trying to object to it, but from time to time deceived by lies disguised under the logic. I realized this when we were analysing the book and I have to face it and overcome it...” (TC-24, 26.04.2017).

Film analyses: The films The Theory of Everything (Stephen Hawking’s Life) and My Left Foot were used to examine the life of people with special needs, the film Hidden Figures was used to examine discrimination against women (maternity, marriage, biases, laws, occupational discrimination, human rights, etc.) and races and also to discuss the cold war era, the film Hotel Rwanda was used to examine ethnic discrimination and the film Serial (Bad) Weddings (Original title: Qu'est-cequ'on a faitau Bon Dieu?) was used to examine religious and racial discrimination. Some quotations from teacher candidates’ diaries about the film discussions are as follows:

“The film activities embodied all those topics discussed during the sessions. For example, when I saw Hawking’s miraculous life I had the chance to see the life from the viewpoint of a disabled person. The discussions after the film enabled us to gain different viewpoints” (The Theory of Everything - TC-8, 22.03.2017).

“Christy Brown was born with cerebral palsy and had to live a life on the wheelchair. However, when he was a child he discovered that his left foot was not affected by his illness and that opened him a whole new life. Contrary to the people saying that he was mentally retarded, he managed to learn reading, writing, painting and speaking and he even wrote books. This is  a  perfect  story  of  not giving up. The most important point here is to review our social responsibilities for the ones not as lucky as Christy and pave the way for them” (My Left Foot- TC-17, 22.03.2017).

“Hidden Figures tells us three NASA worker African American women’s struggle for their rights and equality. These women are forced to struggle against both racial and gender discrimination. The thing that made me wonder is that not everyone is born as talented as these women. These women gained a victory over discrimination in the film but the other women and black people face discrimination all over the world. This film can be a hope for social sensitivity against discrimination” (Hidden Figures- TC-29, 22.03.2017).

“Hotel Rwanda is a striking film showing us how the relationship between Hutu and Tutsy who lived together in peace for many years turned into ethnic discrimination and massacre with a little spark and how the rest of the world sat back and watched the situation in 1994 (a very short time ago)” (Hotel Rwanda- TC-26, 05.04.2017).

“A film that shows us what a nice life a multicultural family can live against all the racist and oppressive mechanisms which come up within the families itself and how indeed we form a harmony with all our differences...” (Qu'est-cequ'on a faitau Bon Dieu?/Serial (Bad) Weddings-TC-32, 19.04.2017).

“Somehow we cannot succeed living together but I believe that one day we will. Because I am still full of hope. A film showing us race, language and religion lose its importance in order to live together, a filmmaking us question the realities of the life” (Qu'est-cequ'on a faitau Bon Dieu?/Serial (Bad) Weddings - TC-15, 19.04.2017)

From local to the universal global issues activities

In this session, teacher candidates shared a game, a song, a food or any other activity specific to their local region with their classmates. Later, teacher candidates wrote scripts and dramas about the differences discussed through the sessions. During the final session, global issues like war, financial injustice, poverty and environmental pollution were discussed in small groups and possible solutions were suggested for them after brainstorming. Some quotations from teacher candidates’ diaries are as follow:

 “Sharing things from our own cultures made us closer to each other. The memories told and photos shown by my friends informed me and made me aware of different things” (TC-10,03.05.2017).

“I think during the script writing session we had the chance to creatively reflect  our  ideas  in  our  scripts  the topics we discussed throughout the sessions” (TC-9,03.05.2017).

“I think scripts enabled written expression of real life. I felt that drama activities we did base on these scripts improved our feelings of empathy towards differences” (TC-30, 03.05.2017).

“As there are about 168 million child labourers in the world and around 2 million in our country, children's rights and equality of opportunities in education must be a primary issue which all citizens of this world must give more consideration” (TC-18, 10.05.2017).

“Children and women are perceived as disadvantaged groups of society. The situation becomes much worse when you add these problems like poverty, religious and racial discrimination. All non-governmental organizations and people who think themselves as global citizens must come together to create realistic solutions to these problems…” (TC-31, 10.05.2017).

“Cleansing of male dominant language from curricula, textbooks and all teaching-learning materials can considerably contribute to raising global citizen individuals…” (TC-25, 10.05.2017).

Analyses of open-ended items evaluation form

Three open-ended questions were asked to reveal how teacher candidates evaluate global citizenship training. These questions are: (1) What do you think about the effects of your participation in GCTP yourself? (2) Which activity did you enjoy the most during the GCTP? (3) What can be your suggestions to improve further GCTP?

(1) To the question “What do you think about the effects of your participation in GCTP on yourself?” All teacher candidates expressed that training program positively affected their perception of global citizenship. Some of the answers that teacher candidates gave in the question forms are as follows:

“The most significant quality of being a global citizen individual is respecting differences. To achieve this, one must first know and develop an understanding of differences and through the films, books, articles, and activities in this training, we gained a lot of information about our differences” (TC-1).

“I think the biggest virtue is trying to understand the problems of others and global problems. I believe I had considerable progress in this with the help of this training. (...) Also, I found brainstorming about global issues very beneficial and creative” (TC-16).

“Most of our biases stem from insufficient information.  By the help of rich content of this training, we have developed a critical perspective to our biases” (TC-5).

“We are the people of the world we live in rather than our race, religion or values. This belief has been engraved in my mind after this training. Also, in no part of this training, I asked myself what is going to be the use of these things I learned because the answer was always crystal clear...” (TC-21).

“This training gave me the opportunity to view global issues from many different perspectives. We had the chance to make extensive discussions during the session. For example, during the sessions, we discussed the uncertainty of multiculturalism and I think I reformulated my own concept of multiculturalism” (TC-14).

“Though I still think that I lack some things about being a global citizen, now I have some information to overcome this...” (TC-30).

“I had the chance to face my own biases” (TC-6).

(2) The answers to the question “Which activity did you most enjoy during the GCTP?” showed that film activities were teacher candidates’ favourite activities. 26 of 32 teacher candidates expressed that films were the most enjoyable activities. Also, scriptwriting and creative drama activities done in the classroom were found to be the other most efficient activities.

(3) Some of the answers teacher candidates gave to the question “What can be your suggestions to further improve GCTP?” are as follows:

“Some documentaries about different cultures can be added to the program” (TC-17).

“Some parts of the TV shows made by travellers can be used during the in-class activities” (TC-28).

“Although there was creative drama in global citizenship training, I believe that it should have been used after every session in order to evaluate what has been done…” (TC-19).

“More guests representing multiculturalism should take part in the training” (TC-23).

“Trips to enable seeing different cultures in their own places should be added to global citizenship training” (TC-2).

“Each participant taking part in the training can present a friend from different culture and his/her routines to the other participants...” (TC-13).

“More films can be used” (TC-8).

“First, all participants can be taught about cultures, lifestyles or preferences they find strange to themselves and later they can be asked to introduce these to other participants…” (TC-4).

“More empathy activities about discrimination can be done” (TC-25).

“I don’t believe that concept of global citizenship can be achieved by just a single training. This concept has to be a part of teacher training policy and teacher candidates must have the opportunity to see some foreign countries to interact with others there even if it is for a short time” (TC-20).

 

 

 

The aim of this study is to examine the effectiveness of the GCTP developed for teacher candidates. “Global Citizenship Competency Perception Scale” and “The Respect of Differences Scale” were applied as pre-tests and post-tests in GCTP which lasted 13 weeks. In addition, teacher candidates wrote diaries at the end of each session and evaluated the program with Open-Ended Item Questionnaire Form at the end of the training.

The findings of the analysis indicate that GCTP has a significant positive effect on teacher candidates’ global citizenship competency perceptions. Other findings show that GCTP has a significant positive effect on teacher candidates’ levels of respect for differences. When the literature is examined, it can be understood that global citizenship education is provided and recommended for different levels ranging from primary education to higher education in every part of the world. These GC educations are perceived to have positive effects on the students’ global citizenship skills (Appleyard and McLean, 2011; Estellés and Romero, 2016; Massey, 2014). It is also seen that GC educations provided in the higher education not only educates individuals but they also enable them to receive some certificates that they might use in their vocational developments (AktaÅŸ et al., 2017).

Teacher candidates’ diaries enabled to hold in-depth discussions about global citizenship, multiculturalism and multicultural teachers, human child and woman rights and social rights. Also, teacher candidates expressed that while they were analyzing the books and films, they had the opportunity to inquire all kinds of discrimination and human rights and compare their ideas with other participants’ ideas. Books and movies can be recommended as a supplementary source in GC education as well as in many other subjects. Hence, Russell and Waters (2013) suggest that movies can be helpful in the development of global citizenship, character education and critical thinking.

And in the last two sessions, teacher candidates created problem scenarios based on issues they discussed before and offered solutions to these problems by means of group work and brainstorming. Teacher candidates expressed that these two sessions provided an opportunity to practice what they had learned. When the literature is reviewed, these types of discussions and inquiry-based exercises are understood to be effective on the GCE (O’Connor and Zeichner, 2011). Additionally, teacher candidates shared games, songs, foods, etc., specific to their local cultures in these sessions. Teacher candidates expressed that they found these activities very useful and stated that these activities got them closer to each other. Thus, the local opportunities presented are suggested to have a positive addition to intercultural dialogue (Crose, 2011). Also, teacher candidates had the opportunity to make self-reflection while writing their diaries. Consequently, via these activities, the basis of self-awareness and engagement/action (self-action and social justice action) which was suggested by Larsen (2014) was attempted.

A detailed examination of open-ended items questionnaire form showed that by means of this training teacher candidates deepened their knowledge of global citizenship, improved their skills of global citizenship, faced their own biases and changed their perspectives as well as they appreciated the materials and activities used for the training. The most appreciated activities by teacher candidates were movie activities, script writing and creative drama.

In addition, teacher candidates suggested that documentaries about different cultures, trips and more films should be added to the training and more guests from different cultures, more creative drama and empathy activities should be included in the training. And some teacher candidates expressed that there should be some opportunities to visit foreign countries in order to have the chance to interact with different cultures during their training or after the training.    

Finally, it can be concluded that GCTP has increased teacher candidates’ perceptions of global citizenship competencies and levels of respect for differences as well as positively affecting their abilities to inquire and analyze topics like multiculturalism, women, children and disabled people’s rights and global issues.

 

(1) Teacher training programs can be reviewed from the point of their role in raising global citizen individuals and necessary changes can be made.

(2) The content of the teacher training programs which aim to raise global citizen individuals can be supported by areas like culture, arts, music, and literature.

(3) Extension of global citizenship training programs for teacher candidates can be provided.

(4) Different studies that examine the effects of book and movie activities in the field of GC education can be planned.

 

The author has not declared any conflicts of interests.