It was in the 1960s that the concept of globalization first came into use in a sense that is close to its present-day definition, while in the 1990s, it became a key concept for explaining many concepts used in the branches of social science (Güzelsarı, 2012, Hirst and Thompson, 2007). Globalization refers to the overall phenomenon by which we live in an increasingly unified and similar world, and by which societies and nations become growingly interdependent. Globalization has emerged from a combination of political, social and economic factors. Furthermore, the speed and scope of communication technologies have been important factors in giving globalization its present-day form (Ritzer, 2011). As a result of the different stages of globalization, the concept of citizenship has begun to attract considerable interest worldwide in the 1990s (Heater, 2007). The concept of citizenship generally describes the willing and committed involvement of individuals in the existing political community (Falk, 1993, p.39). Within the context of the state, the concept of citizenship can be conceptualized based on four aspects. These include the identification of citizenship (a) based on national identity and nationality; (b) based on documents; (c) based on rights; and (d) based on duties and responsibilities (KadıoÄŸlu, 2008). However, the global developments have further enriched the different dimensions of citizenship. As a result, identifying citizenship based on an awareness of one’s responsibilities and duties towards his/her country no longer seems sufficient.

Today, it is necessary to raise citizens who feel responsible towards all of humanity, who possess a universal awareness. In the literature, any citizen having these characteristics is called a “global citizen” (Kan, 2009). “Global citizenship is defined as awareness, caring, and embracing cultural diversity while promoting social justice and sustainability, coupled with a sense of responsibility to act” (Reysen and Katzarska-Miller, 2013) and “global citizenship refers to a sense of belonging to a broader community and common humanity. It emphasizes political, economic, social and cultural interdependency and interconnectedness between the local, the national and the global” (Unesco, 2015). Falk (193:39-42) points out that there are four different variations to the concept of global citizenship. These variations involve a greater emphasis on: 1. working to make a better world; 2. working with the aim of global integration; 3. working to meet ecological necessities; and 4. political mobilization due to ecological necessities. The skills that a global citizen must possess according to Fine’s (2015) UNESCO definition are shown in Table 1. Due to the attention the concept of global citizenship has been receiving in recent years, many international organizations have developed educational materials for ensuring that children and youngsters are educated according to this concept. The characteristics of global citizens as defined in an educational material prepared by OXFAM (2015) are given in Table 2.

As a result of the increasing emphasis on this concept, educational processes and activities focusing on the concept of global citizenship have become more prevalent in school curricula, course contents and educational environments. Education on global citizenship today is one of the most rapidly growing movements, or trends, in education (Dill, 2012; Lehner and Wurzenberger, 2013; Chong, 2015; Sklad et al., 2015; Mac Kenzieb et al., 2016; Costa, 2016). Hicks (2003) opines that the subjects often covered as part of global citizenship education in the educational programs of different countries are based on environment, economic development, intercultural relations, peace, economy, technology and human rights. Toumi et al. (2008) suggest that global citizenship education should include education on human rights, peace and media, intercultural dialogue, international relations, the intercultural relations, and cosmopolitan citizenship. Davies (2006) describes that while there is a consensus on the importance of global citizenship; discussions on what the curricula of these courses should be can be more radical and politicized. However, it is also noted that there is a need to further research the opinions of the students themselves on these subjects. Teachers are of the opinion that though their willingness to teach global citizenship education is negatively affected by different priorities of the state, teachers’ organizations and rigid curriculum practices they have to follow; they still feel highly motivated to achieve the objectives of global citizenship education (Schweisfurth, 2006). Ceylan (2014) emphasizes that prospective teachers do not have sufficient information about global citizenship. In their study on business schools providing global citizenship education, Lilley et al. (2014) observed that giving students’ global citizenship education would help to provide them with social imaginary, relationality and reflexivity in the complex and often uncertain environment of the business world.

On the other hand, global citizenship education may be provided in formal education institutions like schools, and may also be organized as common-public education activities. Common-public education activities may be organized in various styles. One of these is the Youth Camps. In Turkey, Youth Camps are organized by non-governmental organizations and the state. The aim with the Youth Camps, which are organized by Ministry of Youth and Sports in Turkey, is making the young people from different cultural, educational and age groups spend their free times with various social, cultural and sportive activities, and socializing young people. All the needs of the young people, who participate to the Youth Camps organized as nature and sea camps in different regions of Turkey at different time periods, are covered by the Ministry of Youth and Sports. Youth Camps are organized as “Sea Camps” for the 12 to 15 age groups; and as “Nature Camps” or “Thematic Camps” for the 16 to 22 age groups. During these camps, young people participating to the camps are under the responsibility of the Camp Manager, Program Officer, and Camp Leaders, respectively, who work in the Ministry of Sports and Youth (MSY). (http://genclikkamplari.gsb.gov.tr/Modul/GenclikKamplari.aspx). Making young people feel relaxed, allowing them to entertain, making them acquire new skills and make new friends, increase their skills and experiences, making them have fresh air, increasing their physical strength with various sportive activities, and introducing various regions of Turkey are among the major aims of the Youth Camps (Tezcan, 1994). In addition, Fine (2015) conducted a study and emphasized that various camping activities and educational programs were extremely beneficial in terms of global citizenship education.

The Youth Camp leaders working at the camps are determined from among university students, and are assigned to their duties after receiving a certain educational program. As it is known, universities are the institutions where universal knowledge is produced and shared. Tores (2015) pointed out that some of the universities in today’s world were global universities with their research opportunities, academic institutions, and the characteristics of the academic staff and students; however, some are at local level. In addition, it is also considered that universities increase global cooperation with the help of Erasmus and AIESEC, etc. student exchange programs. When global citizenship, which has been explained above, is considered together with global citizenship education, youth camps and university concepts, examining the global citizenship levels of the university students studying at various universities in Turkey (Youth camp leaders), who are employed at youth camps organized by the state in Turkey, become important. The purpose of this study is to examine the global citizenship levels of the university students studying at various universities in Turkey (Youth camp leaders) according to different variables (gender, foreign language, duration of Internet use and licensed sportsman).

The present research is a descriptive study based on the survey model. The study group consisted of a total of 408 participants studying at different universities in Turkey, who attended the youth camp leadership meeting organized in April, 2016 by the Turkish Ministry of Youth and Sports. Data regarding the personal information of the study participants are shown in Table 3. In order to define the global citizenship attitudes of university students (youth camp leaders), the Global Citizenship Scale (GCS) was used as the data collection tool. The GCS consists of 30 items and three dimensions, it was developed by Morais and Ogden (2011) and adapted to Turkish by Åžahin and Çermik (2014), who also tested its validity and reliability (α =0.76). The scoring of the 5-point Likert type scale ranges from “totally disagree (1)” to “totally agree (5)”. In the present study, the scale’s Cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficient was calculated as 0.79. Based on the Kolmogorov-Smirnov normality test (KS=0.670 p=0.77) of the global citizenship total scores, the study data was determined to have a normal distribution. As a result, for the independent groups, a t-test was used for bilateral comparisons, while the unidirectional variance analysis was used for multi-comparisons. The Tukey poc hoc test was used when performing multiple comparisons, and the level of significance was accepted as α =0.05. The Quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics that is frequencies, percentages, means (M) and standard deviations (SD). Statistical analyses were conducted with the SPSS 18 package software. The significance level was accepted as 0.05 for statistical calculations.

In this section, analyses on the study data are shown in Table 4. The study data indicates that the global citizenship scores of the study participants did not differ significantly according to gender [t(408)= -1.525, p>0.05].

Based on this result, it can be said that gender variable does not have an important effect on the global citizenship levels. According to Table 5, the global citizenship scores varied significantly according to the foreign language level of the study participants (p<0.05). Based on the Tukey pos hoc test, this difference was found to be particularly significant between (1) the scores of study participants with beginner and intermediate level of foreign language skills (p=0.005 p<0.05); (2) between study participants with beginner and advanced level of foreign language skills (p=0.000 p<0.05); (3) between study participants with elementary and intermediate level of foreign language skills (p=0.017 p<0.05); and (4) between study participants with intermediate and advanced level of foreign language skills (p=0.000 p<0.05). The data on Table 6 indicate that there were no significant difference in the global citizenship levels of the study participants according to their duration of internet use (P>0.05). Table 7 shows that the global citizenship scores of the study participants varied significantly according to the number of their foreign friends (p<0.05). Based on the analysis performed using the Tukey pos hoc test, it was resolved that this difference are (1) (p=0.033 p<0.05) between the scores of participants with no friends and with 2 to 4 friends; and (2) (p=0.016 p<0.05) between the scores of participants with no friends and with 10 or more friends.

As shown in Table 8, there were no significant differences between the global citizenship levels of the study participants as regards sportsman licenses (P>0.05).

The study results indicate that the university students (youth camp leaders) from different universities in Turkey who participated in the youth camp leadership meeting organized by the Ministry of Youth and Sports had, in general, a medium level of global citizenship score or level ( =100.42). This result is similar to KayışoÄŸlu’s (2016) study on prospective physical education teachers. Evaluations based on the study participants’ gender indicate that the global citizenship levels were nearly similar between males ( =99.73) and females ( =10248). This result is comparable to the findings of Durualp and Durualp (2012), KayışoÄŸlu (2016), Kaya and Kaya (2012) and Ferreira (2011) all of which opine that females are generally more interested in learning about global and social subjects. In this study, three variables were presumed to have influence on the global citizenship levels of the participants. These variables were foreign language level, Internet use, and the number of foreign friends (which can be considered as being dependent on the first two variables). As expected, participants with higher foreign language skills also exhibited higher levels of global citizenship (Table 5). Regarding the use of the internet, it was determined that greater internet use was associated with a decrease in global citizenship levels. This result is extremely interesting. It was expected that as the duration of the Internet use increased, so would the global citizenship levels of the participants.

It is considered that the reasons for this situation is the foreign language proficiency levels of the participants (Table 5) being low, and the characteristics of the ages of the participants. This observation is similar to the findings of Engin and Sarsar (2015) and Sarsar and Harmon (2011; 2012). On the other hand, Kaya and Kaya’s (2012) describe a parallel relationship between global citizenship and the frequent use of the internet, which is in stark contrast with the results of the present study. It was also expected that having a sportsman license would have had a positive effect on global citizenship levels. However, the study data indicated that having sportsman licenses did not have a significant effect on the study participants’ global citizenship levels. However, it is known that sports have the effect of bringing together individuals and societies, and supporting both individual and social development by encouraging greater tolerance towards differences and different cultures (Rees and Miracle, 2000; Miller et al., 2001). In conclusion, the study opines that the global citizenship levels of university students from different universities who participated in the youth camp leaders meeting organized by the Ministry of Youth and Sports was, overall, at a medium level. Also, the foreign language level/skill and the number of foreign friend variables of the participants led to significant differences in global citizenship scores/levels, while gender and sportsman licenses were not associated with any significant differences in global citizenship scores/levels.

According to the results obtained in the study, the following recommendations may be made for university

students (youth camp leaders):

1. It may be recommended that the universities in Turkey establish more student exchange programs and global connections.

2. The contents of global citizenship education may be made use of in training Youth Camp Leaders.

3. Camps with international participation may be organized as well as the local youth camps organized by Ministry of Youth and Sports.

The author has not declared any conflicts of interest.