Global Citizenship: A 2020 Perspective

We live in a world described as fast-paced, hyper-mobile, divisive, and unequal. We have arrived here as a result of accelerating global trends since the 1980s, including shifting labor markets, rapidly developing information and communication technologies, and growing cross-border migration. 

These changes have driven a range of transformations to all levels of our education systems, from pre-primary to higher education. Some changes are positive, like increased linguistic and cultural diversity in classrooms, and some more troubling, like political movements that have rendered education a largely private and economic good. 

Much of my own work has attempted to trace and make sense of such global changes in education policy formation, including research into the spread of international testing around the world; the extent to which national education systems contribute to the cultivation of a globally oriented and socially inclusive citizenry; and the uneven and often inequitable patterns of internationalization in compulsory schooling. 

Through both my research and the work I do with the newest generations of international educators at George Washington University, it is clear to me that the field of international education has never been inoculated against, nor a passive observer of, these major global shifts and changes. Rather, international education is simultaneously a function of and an accelerant to globalization’s major effects on education policy. This current moment is no exception.

2020’s Shocks to the System

In 2020, we witnessed a continuous series of systemic and seismic national- and global-level shocks to international education. By April, more than 290 million school-age students