Cultivating Global Citizenship through Higher Education: A Reflection on the Development from Civic to Global Engagement

Abstract

Due to globalization, society underwent changes towards multiculturalism and vast internationalization of the labor market. Those changes make it necessary to adapt the education of future citizens and equip them with tools to persist in an internationalized and globalized world. Contrary to popular concerns, service and engagement can be connected to the goal of internationalization in higher education. The aim of this theoretical paper is to provide new perspectives on the topic of internationalization in higher education and the development of Global Citizenship. We analyze the existing literature to explore the development and interconnections between different types of engagement, specifically the concepts of Civic Engagement, Service Learning, Global Engagement and Global Service Learning. Subsequently, we discuss the role and relevance of higher education institutions and partnerships in achieving Global Citizenship by equipping students with the cross-cultural competencies they need to be successful in a global society. Finally, we discuss the merit of Global Learning and the role engagement can play in the future of internationalized and engaged education.

1. Introduction

In the last few centuries, Civic Engagement has been promoted for its ambitious goal of individual flourishing as well as higher-level societal aims such as fostering democracy and participation [1], with engagement and service considered separately [2]. While there are many definitions of Civic Engagement, they share the conception of the civic construct as,

“one in which the individual would be an active and engaged citizen: an active individual is one who participates in civic activities; and an engaged individual is one who focuses more intensely on a civic enterprise.” [3] (p. 616).

Civic Engagement is encouraged to pursue different goals within different organizational and governance structures throughout the world [4], yet all related to the overcharging concept of citizenship. The connection is often made between Civic Engagement and a functioning democracy, as democracies require active participation by their citizens to form civil associations and social capital [1]. This conception of the civic construct is closely linked to other benefits of individual development, including educational achievements and social competencies.

Due to the strong connection between citizenship and personal development, citizenship education in higher education is often strengthened with the training of individual competencies, which ultimately leads to more engaged citizens, benefiting society [5,6]. Citizenship education thus combines the idea of providing students space and time for self-development activities [7] with two of the other main tasks of higher education, namely teaching and research. It is closely connected to the third task of higher education, which can be summarized as contributing to communities [2], which is achieved by preparing students to be active citizens in society [8] and to be successful in the labor market [9]. At present, a commonly used teaching method to teach Civic Engagement has been Service Learning. Service Learning is a pedagogical tool that is applied to engage students in, “active, relevant, and collaborative learning […] and to enhance student learning, student development, and commitment to future civic involvement.” [10] (p. 274).

Due to the economic and global effects of globalization, which is generally considered to be the process of the world becoming a more interconnected place [11], the idea of citizenship and the labor market itself underwent significant changes toward being more international [9]. With this development, cross-cultural competencies became key requirements for positive credentials in the labor market and to be successful in society, which is characterized by a variety of social, economic and political challenges due to globalization [9]. With increasing internationalization in different parts of society due to globalization, engagement on a global, rather than a communal or national level, gained relevance. The need for global perspectives and cross-cultural competencies means that we are no longer talking about Civic Engagement and Citizenship, but have rather shifted to discussing Global Engagement and, related to it, Global Citizenship.

Higher education, which has the imperative to educate all its students in a manner that effectively prepares them to be active participants in society, will thus need to prepare all students to succeed in a globalized society. In the globalized world of the twenty-first century, this includes, for everyone, extensive knowledge across different cultures and being able to work in an international environment and cooperating with people from different origins [12]. Cultural, political and social involvement needs to be internationalized and practiced in higher education, in order to help students develop the skills and graduate attributes they need in a globalized society [12]. It also means that it can no longer be up to a relatively small number of individual students to pursue an international education or follow a Global Citizenship course in their program, as was previously mostly the case. Already in 2011, the American Council on Education stated that institutions of higher education, “are asked to produce graduates who are capable of communication across borders and citizens who are invested with the capacity to navigate a transparent, permeable world.” [13] (p. 6). While some higher education institutions have successfully managed to incorporate ways to integrate Global Engagement in the curriculum and offer transnational courses to students, such as the institutions that are a part of CIVIS (an alliance of ten research universities in Europe) and many of the University Colleges in the Netherlands, a majority of institutions appear to face challenges with institutionalizing Global Engagement.

Higher education thus needs to re-assess the purpose and position of Civic Engagement and citizenship in a changing globalized world, and instead move its focus to Global Engagement and Global Citizenship, in order to train the future global citizens of our interconnected society. By directly connecting engagement to internationalization, higher education will need to shift from preparing students to participate in a democratic society to supporting the development of global citizens [14]. These developments do not need to be separated but can be achieved simultaneously as engagement and service are linked to internationalization and influence each other [2]. Once it is established that Global Citizenship is a necessity in higher education in order to equip students with Global Citizenship competences, questions are raised on how to position this in the curriculum. For example: is Service Learning, which was previously well-connected to Civic Engagement, still a relevant teaching method? Are there alternative pedagogical tools to educate global citizens? Is offering exchanges between institutions of higher education sufficient to learn relevant cross-cultural competencies? In this paper, we are concretely exploring two main research objectives:

^1. 

Why is a change from Civic- to Global Engagement in higher education necessary and why is this topic relevant regarding student development in institutions?

^2. 

What can we learn from pedagogical tools such as Service Learning in order to foster Global Engagement in higher education institutions?

We aim to answer these questions by way of a theoretical paper in which we analyze the current literature and explore new perspectives regarding the interconnectedness and development of engagement in higher education in a globalized world, with the overarching goal of fostering Global Citizenship in students. As our research method is literature-based, we first review the development from citizenship and Civic Engagement to Global Citizenship and Global Engagement as presented in the literature. We subsequently address the role of higher education and discuss ways in which Global Engagement efforts can be implemented and institutionalized in curricula in order to prepare global citizens to take an active role and succeed in an increasingly interconnected and dynamic society.

2. Citizenship and Civic Engagement in Democracies

In order to conceptualize citizenship and Civic Engagement and assess their relation to higher education, we will first need to develop a mutual understanding of what these two terms encompass. According to Constanze Flanagan (2008) [15], a common definition of citizenship was first described by Michael Walzer in 1989:

“A citizen is, most simply, a member of a political community, entitled to whatever prerogatives and encumbered with whatever responsibilities are attached to membership. The word comes to us from the Latin civis; the Greek equivalent is polites, member of the polis, from which comes our political.” [16] (p. 211).

Another conceptualization of citizenship is provided by Joseph Kahne and colleagues, who differentiate between three different types of citizens in 2000 [17] (p. 46):

^1. 

Someone who fulfills their civic duties (e.g., voting, paying taxes, obeying the law) is a responsible citizen;

^2. 

Someone who is an active member within their community and helps with the planning of events or participates in local board positions is a participatory citizen;

^3. 

Someone who tries to get to the bottom of civil problems and brings them to the public’s attention is a social reformer.

Both citations make connections from citizenship to politics and responsibility. Taking responsibility and acting as active agents in society make citizens great contributors to democratic structures. Focusing on democracies in the discussion around active citizenship is not an arbitrary choice. Democracies provide a certain structure in the way their society is built that allows organization-based and individual-based engagement equally and has a requirement for engagement in the way that democracy needs social capital and actively engaged citizens in order to function effectively [1]. The concept of citizenship includes fulfilling one’s responsibility towards the community and playing an active part in society, which is where Civic Engagement comes in, and according to the Policy Circle, is a tool to foster a variety of outcomes in a society. Civic Engagement is said to lead to more civic participation, an educated citizenry on the topics of governance and history, more advocacy for organizations that try to establish communal well-being and citizens standing up for their legislation [1]. As such, Civic Engagement represents values that go together with the listed outcomes. Advocating for and with others, respecting communal structures and developing flourishing living spaces can be listed as such outcomes [1]. Deborah Bobek and colleagues (2009) use a four-dimensional definition of Civic Identity and Civic Engagement (“CICE”, p. 617) in order to define the concept even more concretely [3] (p. 618):

^1. 

Social trust and social capital which is defined as a sense of generalized reciprocity;

^2. 

Civic knowledge and skills which is defined as the ability and expertise to be involved in civil society and democracy;

^3. 

Procivic attitudes which is the desire and mindset to get involved with others to make positive contributions to society;

^4. 

Civic Engagement is the participation in activities for the betterment of one’s community (however narrowly or broadly defined).

While Deborah Bobek and colleagues (2009) constitute a theoretical framework that consists of four factors, the results conducted by their confirmatory factor analysis, a research method that investigates the amount of explanatory power various items provide for a latent factor, indicate that CICE can be better framed by the following six factors: Civic Duty; Civic Skills; Neighborhood Social Connection; Peer Social Connection; Adult Social Connection; Civic Participation [3]. In 2004, Maryland’s Team on Civic Engagement and Leadership also recognized that there are multiple dimensions to Civic Engagement, and defined the term as follows:

“a heightened sense of responsibility to one’s communities that includes a wide range of activities, including developing civic sensitivity, participation in building civil society, and benefiting the common good.” [18] (p. 17).

Civic Engagement is not just something that is nice to have; it is a necessity in democracies to keep the political and civil system working. This connection between citizenship, Civic Engagement and democracy is further emphasized in the description of engagement as provided by Peter L. Benson and colleagues who explain that engagement in civic associations helps develop a specific set of skills as well as social capital that are transferable to forms of Civic Engagement [19]. These perspectives can be connected to the claim that a healthy democracy requires organizations in the civic sector as a sort of social capital which can be accomplished through Civic Engagement [1]. Civic Engagement can be practiced under all forms of constitutions, yet depending on the governance structure, the focus of the engagement tends to be on different aspects and the engagement is organized in different ways [4]. For example, while comparing Civic Engagement in Japan to Civic Engagement in the United States, it becomes apparent that, in Japan, Civic Engagement is much more often carried out by governmental organizations than it is practiced by non-governmental ones. Whereas in the United States, in contrast, Civic Engagement is not only related to organizations but much more closely bound to the individual engagement of various types [4].

Considering the described conceptions of Civic Engagement, it becomes clear that the meaning behind Civic Engagement is not limited to an activity or something a person does, it also includes cultivating a specific mindset. In pedagogical terms, this is where we would speak of the development of competencies: the combination of skills, behavior and attitude. In 2010, Constance Flanagan and Peter Levine further indicated such characteristics of civic activities, which include: connecting to others; learning about public goods and values; solving problems; forming social networks and building social capital [20]. They additionally mention that connecting to educational and occupational opportunities is important to achieve the desired outcomes of Civic Engagement.

At the same time, it is a necessity to highlight the importance of higher education for the development of individuals in regard to society. Higher education prepares students to be responsible citizens and form developing societies [8]. In addition, one of the main priorities is to prepare students for the labor market. Civic Engagement is therefore a required asset in higher education to allow students to develop their sense of citizenry while also providing students with the tools they need to persist in future societies [9].

There are various ways to incorporate Civic Engagement into higher education, and a popular one has been by applying the method of Service Learning (SL). SL can be defined as, “active, relevant, and collaborative learning […] and to enhance student learning, student development, and commitment to future civic involvement.” [10] (p. 274). The main motivation behind SL is to engage students in meaningful work that is connected to actual needs in a community while also following up said engagement in academic classroom learning and thereby helping students among other things to develop civic skills and a democratic attitude [15]. SL as a method thus manages to balance the needs of a community with education and theory. Furthermore, applying methods of SL actually improves student achievement of core academic skills [21,22] and increases student development and future civic engagement [21,23] while simultaneously elevating teachers’ satisfaction with their teaching [24]. According to Janet Eyler and Dwight Giles (1999) “participation in service-learning leads to the values, knowledge, skills, efficacy, and commitment that underlie effective citizenship” [25] (p. 164). A practical example of SL in higher education is the “Small World Initiative” by Yale University. Starting in 2012, this project started as a pilot course addressing the issue of antibiotic resistance in modern society. Together with partner institutions, students can work on this real-life impactful problem for society by collecting their own data and experimenting. The project has spread first nationwide and then internationally with a variety of partner institutions and companies [26]. By connecting the performance of a service to society and engagement with education in this approach, the barrier some institutions believe to exist between education and engagement can be crossed [2]. This combination allows students to connect volunteer service with practical work, their education and job aspirations.

With the institutionalization of Service Learning (SL) and other types of community service methods in higher education, for example, making a specific number of service hours a mandatory condition for graduation which has become practice at some universities and colleges in the US, the number of SL courses has reportedly increased exponentially [15]. An increase in students’ civic and democratic skills and their sense of communal problems, which was fostered through high engagement rates were shown [15]. These findings suggest that Civic Engagement in higher education could benefit from a high level of institutionalization of engagement activities.

In short, citizenship and Civic Engagement entail the idea of taking responsibility to get involved at a local and national level and gaining the competencies to do so through engagement. Engagement of citizens benefits individuals and democracies greatly, and Civic Engagement competencies have therefore been promoted in higher education in order to prepare graduates to take an active role in society and be prepared for the labor market. However, in recent decades the labor market has fundamentally changed due to globalization efforts. This provokes the question of whether Civic Engagement does still meet the needs of citizens in a globalized world.

3. Globalization and Changes in the Labor Market

The term globalization describes the process of the world becoming a more interconnected place, leading to economic and social changes [11]. Using the example from the National Geographic Society (2019), we can picture globalization as a huge spider web being spun around the world with a continuously increasing number of threads [11]. This allows for various things, such as goods, money, diseases and people, to travel around the world and interchange. Due to globalization, communities themselves thus change: they become multicultural and international, which creates different needs. Globalization caused a shift in society and the labor market towards internationalization and global thinking. Therefore, Citizens now need to be equipped with new or added skills in order to effectively meet their civic duties, such as taking responsibility for global societal challenges or actively engaging in multicultural community events. This expectation of an internationalized society and labor market directly influences the curricula of higher education institutions, which need to respond to this shift in society and make an effort to prepare students with the required skills and a global mindset [9].

In 2011, the American Council on Education (ACE) clearly stated the direction higher education should gravitate towards: “In the 21st century, ACE and the institutions that it represents operate in a more complex, interconnected global environment.” [13] (p. 6). They continue to argue that higher education can no longer only observe from afar, but that it is time to act as education is directly affected by the changes in society due to globalization [13]. In their words:

“Active engagement with the rest of the world has become fundamental to a high quality education, one that prepares students and their communities for the larger world in which they will live and work.” [13] (p. 6).

Six years later, Fletcher and colleagues explored internationalized learning outcomes specifically, and collected expert interviews and used the existing literature to shed light on the question of why the world needs Global Learning goals. As a starting point, they state that the future of education is not certain yet in terms of which topics are going to be covered in the curricula of schools. According to the authors, “[i]t is increasingly clear that we are currently teaching the wrong things in the wrong ways.” [27] (p. 6), implying that education as a whole needs to be rethought by considering all the skills future citizens might need in our globalized world. These skills and subsequent learning outcomes would include, “[…] education of the head (knowledge), hand (skills) and heart (well-being).” [27] (p. 6). The mission of education should be to foster skills students need to succeed in the future society.

Based on the literature, it can be established that there are three apparent steps that higher education can take as a guide to meet the needs of an international society and a globalized labor market:

^1. 

Thinking globally: A broader perspective on our globalized world is necessary. Extending knowledge across borders, including the Global South and engaging in meaningful relationships [8,12], can be a way to create a more open mindset and consider multiple perspectives. University graduates should no longer only be educated in their field of study but they should have cross-cultural competencies and interdisciplinary knowledge [27] both of which allow them to live and work in international environments.

^2. 

Institutionalization: Offering Civic Engagement as a voluntary extracurricular activity is not sufficient to support all students to achieve a global mindset. Higher education needs to take steps as a whole to integrate forms of engagement into their curricula as well as create a supportive environment and financial support to allow for internationalization [10,28]. In addition, research is needed to provide a formal assertion of students’ global learning achievements and the subsequent graduate attributes in relation to (Civic) Engagement.

^3. 

Teaching environment: Higher education can make a difference in developing global citizens when using the right teaching approaches, such as Service Learning, and concepts in their curricula [17,29].

In short, when talking about engagement, it is crucial to be aware that thinking locally or even nationally is no longer sufficient. The Maryland Team on Civic Engagement and Leadership (2004) already recognized this need for engagement beyond the national level, when they added to their definition of Civic Engagement that citizens are meant to act “[…] as citizens of their communities, their nations, and the world […].” [18] (p. 17). Engagement thus needs to be thought of as a global practice that is transnational and cross-cultural [9]. Therefore, local Civic Engagement opportunities as offered by institutions of higher education and residential organizations do not equip students with the tools and skills they need to persist in a global society and an international labor market [8]. Instead, it is proposed that higher education should prepare its students to take up their role as global citizens, and be equipped with Global Engagement competencies and attributes.

4. Global Citizenship and Global Engagement

Before exploring how Global Engagement can be institutionalized in higher education, we need to gain a more in-depth understanding of the concept of Global Engagement itself. In doing so, it should become clear why the development towards Global Citizenship should be encouraged and what elements are included in the concept of Global Engagement.

As mentioned previously, democracies require engagement to function effectively and this need for engagement was fulfilled through various forms of Civic Engagement, which was incorporated into higher education practices. However, as Civic Engagement does not respond to the globalized society, the concept of Civic Engagement needs to be extended to include the teaching of intercultural competence and internationality, which means shifting towards Global Engagement and Global Citizenship.

Global Citizenship can be defined using two levels: on the one hand the rights and responsibilities citizens have towards their own community and nation, and, on the other hand, the rights and responsibilities citizens have towards the transnational community [30]. The two levels are complementary and for Global Citizenship both need to be present. Lucy Mule and colleagues (2018) establish three common approaches within Global Citizenship: a radical-, a transformationalist- and a neoliberal approach [31]. While the radical approach focuses on structural (power) relations, the transformationalist approach tries to emphasize a change in the social sector. For the purpose of thematizing engagement in democracies, the neoliberal approach seems most fitting, because its emphasis is on the development of competencies to increase the success of students in the labor market. The development of competencies under the neoliberal approach ties into, what he himself calls a utopian, definition of Global Citizenship as provided by Michael Woolf (2010): The term Global Citizen,

“usually describes someone who is, or who aspires to be, broad minded, intellectually engaged with other cultures, aware of the interdependence of nations, committed to tolerance and understanding of difference.” [32] (p. 48).

The OECD (2016) defines Global Competence using four dimensions people need to master in order to be globally considerate (p. 7f) [33]:

^1. 

The capacity to examine issues and situations of local, global and cultural significance. (e.g., poverty, economic interdependence, migration, inequality, environmental risks, conflicts, cultural differences and stereotypes);

^2. 

The capacity to understand and appreciate different perspectives and world views;

^3. 

The ability to establish positive interactions with people of different national, ethnic, religious, social or cultural backgrounds or gender;

^4. 

The capacity and disposition to take constructive action toward sustainable development and collective well-being.

This suggestion from the OECD for the conception of Global Thinking and Global Competencies allows for precise orientation when it comes to framing what a global citizen should be able to do. With this perspective of Global Citizenship, the earlier explained and commonly implemented idea of Civic Engagement needs to be complemented by adding the development of competencies that are needed for Global Thinking and taking responsibility in a globalized society. Those two aspects are incorporated into the concept of Global Engagement. Global Engagement is therefore linked to Civic Engagement by globalization and different understandings of citizenship; however, it is a much more complex concept that requires further explanation.

The term Global Engagement is used to describe new ways of thinking and working in a globalized and, therefore, connected world. Within Global Engagement, we recognize two important features. On an individual level, Global Engagement includes the efforts that individuals make within an institution to develop themselves as global citizens. This is where the development of personal Global Engagement competencies comes in, summarized by Darla Deardorff (2004) as follows: “the ability to communicate effectively and appropriately in intercultural situations based upon one’s intercultural knowledge, skills, and attitudes” [34] (p. 194). If we continue to apply this explanation to higher education, this could for example refer to exchanges of faculty members or students, studying abroad or cross-county cooperation [12]. There are multiple examples of cross-country cooperation in higher education. For example, “CIVIS” the European Civic University is a cooperation of 10 European universities co-founded by the Erasmus organization. Students from these universities can enroll in collaborative courses and develop their cross-cultural competencies by gaining new perspectives from students of other nationalities [35].

A second required feature of Global Engagement includes dimensions that extend beyond individual awareness, to global awareness of the world and the responsibility of the individual within their surroundings. This is in line with parts of the definition of Global Engagement by the OECD:

“Globally competent individuals can examine local, global and intercultural issues, understand and appreciate different perspectives and worldviews, interact successfully and respectfully with others, and take responsible action toward sustainability and collective well-being.” [33] (p. 4).

Finally, Kevin Hovland’s (2014) suggestion for Global Learning outcomes could be a way to orient the framework of Global Engagement toward concrete teaching and learning goals [36]. Here, it is proposed that Global Learning should enable students to [36] (p. 1):

^1. 

Become informed, open-minded, and responsible people who are attentive to diversity across the spectrum of differences;

^2. 

Seek to understand how their actions affect both local and global communities;

^3. 

Address the world’s most pressing and enduring issues collaboratively and equitably.

Emerging from those learning objectives one can conclude that Global Engagement should facilitate cross-cultural and reflective education, awareness concerning the impact of actions in international contexts, and inter-and transdisciplinary international cooperation to solve global problems. This cross-cultural education to facilitate a cross-cultural understanding among society does not establish itself and needs to be actively incorporated in higher education institutions e to equip students with the knowledge, skills and attitudes needed to become globally engaged citizens.

5. Institutionalization of Global Engagement

After establishing what the concept and components of Global Engagement encompass, the question that remains unanswered is how one can develop programs and educational strategies to concretely implement Global Engagement into higher education, in order to achieve the overarching goal of Global Citizenship. In the literature, this effort is generally referred to as institutionalization. While individuals within institutions need to understand the importance of engagement and change the way they think about learning in higher education, not all responsibility can or should be shifted to the individual [37]. Only holding individual teachers and learners accountable or making changes in isolated parts of programs is not sufficient to achieve a fundamental change. Instead, the aim higher education should be reaching for is the entire institutionalization of engagement throughout the programs offered by the institution [37].

On an institutional level, it is therefore suggested that Global Engagement requires,

“formalized relationships explicitly defined by memoranda of understanding, joint and dual degree programs, branch campuses established in other countries, cooperative research projects, and other related ventures.” [12] (p. 1).

In other words, institutions should incorporate opportunities for Global Engagement in their curriculum, adapt their learning outcomes and create structures that make cross-cultural and internationalized learning possible, which should be accessible to both their students and staff. In 2004, Mary Jane Brukardt and colleagues developed a framework of practices that institutions can apply to aim for more institutionalization of engagement [38]. According to the authors, on the level of the teaching and learning environment, institutions need to:

^1. 

Make room for engagement in teaching and learning: In regard to Civic Engagement, this meant engaging students in local meaningful hands-on activities, while Global Engagement could now require staff to incorporate pedagogical tools where students are asked to reflect on intercultural perspectives. Connecting with different actors and realities outside of the traditional classroom and thus extending the classroom are important elements in this respect.

^2. 

Change the way they recruit by prioritizing other characteristics of applicants: Instead of recruiting students that are engaged civically (which one usually does by paying attention to extracurricular activities and prior work in the community), institutions should prioritize the value of an international classroom where learning from different perspectives and cultures can take place, and focus on openness towards such an environment in the recruitment process.

^3. 

Form meaningful partnerships as a guiding structure: It can be said that Civic Engagement relies on engagement within a community, while Global Engagement requires working with international and external partners. Forming meaningful and long-term partnerships can enhance student learning and the overall learning outcome [39].

However, these three components of the teaching and learning environment are just one of the areas that can be investigated in regard to global engagement efforts. According to Brukardt and colleagues, an even broader scope needs to be added in order to effectively incorporate engagement into an institution. In their paper, they state that institutions need to: (4) involve engagement in their institutional philosophy, (5) reflect on how they need to change their thinking about scholarships, and, (6) reform the institution radically [38]. The framework thus shows that in order to reach institutionalization of Global Engagement, changes need to be made on the organizational level such as an institution’s philosophy but also on a practical level such as the adaptation of the curriculum. While working on the institutionalization of engagement at an institution, program leaders should thus be aware of making changes in multiple dimensions: horizontally throughout each department as well as vertically, spread through the hierarchy and different levels of the institution [28] (p. 478).

6. Institutionalization and Global Service Learning

Evidently, there is not just one or one “right way” to concretely institutionalize Global Engagement in higher education. While short stays abroad or more extensive study abroad programs are an obvious way to engage students globally and can serve as a catalysator for Global Engagement [40], it is usually challenging for a meaningful partnership to form, which is a key element to achieve Global Engagement learning outcomes [39]. Adding to this reasoning, supervision needs to be provided by an organization or institution and traveling itself needs to be organized [40] and funded, making short stays and study abroad very selective and, therefore, less attractive and accessible to all students [41]. Therefore, study abroad and study abroad programs can be considered an option to engage students globally, however, as stated above, there are serious limitations to these methods and more promising options to foster Global Citizenship in students. In contrast, a more accessible and popular method to make room for engagement in teaching and learning activities has been, as explained earlier, through Service Learning (SL), and it is, therefore, interesting to explore, as we will do below, how the SL teaching method could also be relevant in Global Learning, i.e., Global Service Learning (GSL).

Campus Compact researched, “the degree of success” [10] (p. 275) of incorporating SL at different institutions and concluded that the likelihood of the institutionalization of SL increases if:

^1. 

The institutional mission and the actual planning share the same basis;

^2. 

There is acceptance and support for long-term investment into SL;

^3. 

The faculties are involved in the planning process as well and not just administration;

^4. 

The faculties are equipped with the necessary allowances by the administration to engage in methods of Service Learning (course development, financial support);

^5. 

The work of the faculty is accessible to the public;

^6. 

The planning of the integration of SL takes place over time and on different levels [42].

Additionally, Janet Eyler and Dwight Giles (1999) point out that Service Learning actually leads to more engagement if the framework is thoroughly ingrained and implemented within an institution [25]. Barbara Holland contributes to this perspective by describing the key institutional factors for SL in Bringle and Hatcher (2000) as follows:

“mission; faculty promotion, tenure, and hiring; organizational structure to support community engagement; student involvement and integration of service into the curriculum; faculty involvement; community involvement; and publications and university relations.” [10,43,44] (p. 276).

While some institutionalization aspects can be implemented without making radical changes, such as making engagement part of the mission or forming stronger cooperations with external partners, other steps require a longer-term investment and more radical change within institutions and programs [12,28].

Successful engagement requires commitment from the institution that is trying to incorporate forms of SL for more engagement. As SL was already commonly used as a way to implement and institutionalize Civic Engagement [45], there is an implication that there may be continuous benefits and lessons to be learned from the educational method now that Civic Engagement progresses to Global Engagement. In this development, SL now develops into Global Service Learning (GSL) as an educational method to promote and practice Global Engagement to foster Global Citizenship in students.

McGill and Matross (2013) take Service Learning on a global level, i.e., GSL, further by conceptualizing internationalization in higher education. Examples of institutionalized GSL are for instance spending one or two semesters abroad to structure academic experiences and allow guidance through the local environment and challenges [40], or (virtual) research internships with international partners with a focus on local solutions and reflective practices [46]. Since this type of learning is guided, students have the opportunity to actively reflect on their experiences, enriching their learning outcomes [10]. Again, home institutions need to adequately prepare their students for their experience in order to achieve GSL learning outcomes [40], requiring high levels of institutionalization of Global Engagement.

To summarize, the institutionalization of engagement through the practice of methods such as SL has shown to be of great importance for successful Civic Engagement. Nowadays, GSL can be used as a way to implement Global Engagement in higher education by broadening the context of engagement to a global level. Institutions as a whole need to provide structures, such as an institutional philosophy that encourages engagement, for staff and students to make engagement easily accessible to everybody regardless of their financial standing and also show the value of engaging in society. Active citizenship can be learned and taught in higher education by adapting teaching methods accordingly. However, engagement extends beyond the teaching and learning environment, and also requires collaboration within the international community for example by collaborating with external partners, and again institutionalizing these partnerships.

7. Institutionalization and Partnership

Institutionalization of Global Engagement does not only allow for controlled and well-managed ways of supporting the development of Global Citizenship in students, it simultaneously encourages the facilitation of long-term relationships with external partners. As stated by Cynthia Toms (2018):

“When carefully designed, deep and meaningful partnerships within our close locality can become the essential ingredient for enacting global engagement for the common good of both students and communities.” [39] (p. 69).

Continuing, it can be said that if higher education is to work on- and work with Global Engagement as a tool for the development of Global Citizenship in students, it needs to view engagement not as something you do for someone else somewhere else, but as something you do with someone else while incorporating local perspectives as well [39]. The goal should be to work towards the development of a sense of citizenship that is, “[…] committed to working toward a vision of society that is free of exclusion and nativism.” [39] (p. 70). This view on the relevance of partnership building in order to make meaningful changes in society can be complemented by Denise Gammonley and colleagues (2007), who emphasize:

“the central importance of human relationships as a vehicle for change […] by promoting reciprocity between in-country hosts and student and faculty participants and with interactions based on mutual respect” [47] (p. 134).

Emerging from this statement is that partnership in the sense of performing a service for someone else is not what Global Engagement means. Global Engagement requires partnerships to be beneficial for both sides while also demanding from both sides. This view often comes from an understanding in higher education that partnerships do not need to be integrated into the curriculum, but they do need to be useful by for example allowing students to network [8]. Partnerships can serve to be so much more than just “useful”, which can be seen in the three components of effective Global Service Learning with partnerships by Gregory T. Bish and John Lommel (2016) [40]:

^1. 

The program should allow for a shared representation of both partners. There should be clear communication about the partnership and the emphasis on benefitting mutually from the collaboration;

^2. 

The program should allow for the realization of the importance of student- and community outcomes. While academic outcomes can be tested and visualized with grades, personal development should be taken into consideration as well;

^3. 

The program should value the unfolding of the benefits from the partnership in the host community. People that are connected to the program should experience personal growth from the collaboration.

These practices can specifically be applied to Global Service Learning but should be transferable to other Global Engagement methods as well [40]. Concluding the section on the importance of establishing partnerships correctly during the process of institutionalization, one can infer that partnerships with regional or global organizations should allow both partners to benefit from the collaboration. Or, as Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert (2012) summarize: “Development is not done to people or for people but with people” [48] (p. 105). This statement distinctly illustrates the intrinsic context-specificity of GSL as a pedagogical tool, which is further illustrated in the example of the CU Wheelchair project, a GSL initiative based in Kenya in collaboration with Hope City [40]. Here, researchers are able to collect a variety of data regarding wheelchair experience (e.g., different wheelchair models, prosthetics, physical therapy and gear evaluation), while the community at the same time participates and benefits from the medical tools and input they receive from the researchers. In the CU Wheelchair project, a partnership is developed which is marked by constant communication and information exchange between the two involved parties. The needs of the community and the researchers can be addressed and aligned, and ways of working can be altered if necessary, resulting in a mutually beneficial partnership: “The structured frequent checks and rechecks among all partners involved in this long-term commitment have allowed the project to continue to address the needs of the host community.” [40] (p. 299). One should strive for these types of collaborations when attempting to further institutionalize Global Engagement.

8. Discussion

The literature shows that the concepts of Citizenship, Civic Engagement, Globalization, Global Citizenship, Global Engagement, Institutionalization and Service Learning are greatly linked to each other. Interestingly, all these topics have been discussed individually in the previous literature, yet their interconnectedness remains rather undiscussed and is only thematized sporadically. In our paper, we have attempted to demonstrate how the concepts are connected and how they have evolved over time from Citizenship and Civic Engagement to the present need, driven by globalization, to foster Global Citizenship and Global Engagement.

A reason for the noticeable lack of research on Civic Engagement in recent years could be related to the notion that Civic Engagement no longer sufficiently supports the development of competencies and attributes needed in a multicultural society and an international labor market. At the same time, we do observe an increase in publications about study abroad programs. Even though, as argued above, studying abroad in itself does not facilitate Global Citizenship and Global Engagement, there are many factors that can be considered mediators for the learning outcome for students of study abroad, one of them being institutionalization. Authors such as Gregory T. Bish and John Lommel (2016) point out that the accompaniment of study abroad with supervision and academic courses to embed gained experiences in an academic context allow for better Global Engagement learning outcomes [40]. As such, the increase in publications regarding studying abroad could support the observed shift toward Global Engagement. In order to gain further insight into achieving Global Engagement and the lessons we can still learn from educational practices related to prior Civic Engagement, it would be beneficial to conduct further research into other aspects of institutionalizing Global Engagement, such as Global Service Learning.

As indicated above, in order to institutionalize engagement, institutions need to make room for engagement in teaching and learning. Evidently, teachers are fundamental in successfully incorporating Global Engagement in the classroom, which leads to questions such as: How do we equip teachers with the right training to integrate Global Engagement in the curriculum? What skills do teachers themselves need to teach a Global Service Learning course? What should their qualifications be and how should they teach? These questions gain even more relevance if we compare and learn from existing research in this field of secondary education. For example, the 2018 PISA results indicate that the percentage of students whose teachers received professional training in the field of Global Competence is below 50% in multiple areas such as the role of education in confronting discrimination, teaching about equality and diversity and culturally responsive teaching approaches and techniques for example [49] (p. 195). The 2018 TALIS study that specifically focuses on teachers and their development further supports these findings by reporting the lack of training teachers receive in their education on teaching in multilingual or multicultural settings [50]. In higher education, we can learn from previously conducted research among different yet connected target groups and from the efforts that have since been implemented to improve professional development regarding Global Engagement. Future research could therefore focus on specifically determining what the desired learning outcomes of Global Learning are and what Global Learning contains from the teacher’s perspective.

Andreas Schleicher, director for the Directorate of Education and Skills, OECD in Paris, was interviewed on the topic of Global Learning topic by Fletcher and colleagues in 2017 and marked the importance of a change in people’s mindset when it comes to education. Content-focused teaching is a widely accepted view of education, while thinking and truly understanding a topic are not actively seen as a priority in education at the moment. Students’ understanding and thinking can be promoted by interdisciplinary teaching which is likely to offer multiple perspectives on a topic. Students should be introduced to said different perspectives and contexts but the development of skills such as creativity, imagination and resilience should be encouraged as well [27]. There is a need to examine additional pedagogical methods beyond Global Service Learning as a tool for fostering said mindset, where digitization and the lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic regarding for example virtual classrooms and internships are important areas to incorporate [46], especially as they show potential to remove some of the accessibility limitations of previously mentioned tools such as study abroad.

Referring back to the conceptualization of Global Competence as proposed by the OECD (the capacity to examine issues of local and global significance; understand and appreciate different world views; take constructive action toward sustainable development and well-being), it becomes quite clear that Global Learning relies on interdisciplinary thinking and the application of multiple contexts and perspectives on a problem but also facing the problem on a local-, national- and global levels and searching for sustainable solutions while still tolerating other perspectives. Using this argument, it can be highlighted that Global Citizenship requires Global Learning and the development of Global Competencies through interdisciplinary education. Teachers thus need to be able to think critically and make interconnections across a variety of topics. It is a necessity that teachers can consider, tolerate and apply multiple perspectives on a topic. Therefore, teacher education itself needs to be more interdisciplinary and address the importance of thinking, understanding and reflecting rather than just presenting content to students (i.e., interactive teaching). Intercultural awareness training for teachers can be a tool to raise awareness and equip teachers with a fundamental understanding of the increasing importance of international classroom designs. It is crucial that teachers themselves also need to understand and practice reflection, which can be achieved through professional development workshops that specialize in internationalization, such as the European EQUiiP program (Educational Quality at Universities for inclusive international Programmes, [51]). When education is viewed as a collaborative process in which students and teachers both interact in a safe environment, Global Learning can successfully take place.

Concluding, democracy requires engagement and active citizenship, which can be summarized in the concept of Civic Engagement. The objective of this theoretical paper was to provide an overview of the development from citizenship and Civic Engagement to Global Citizenship and Global Engagement. It was proposed that globalization made cross-cultural competencies a necessity in modern international societies in order to be successful in the labor market. Being aware of multiculturalism and international differences, taking transnational responsibility and acting mindful of global impacts are included in the components of Global Citizenship. However, citizens are not born as global citizens and need to learn how to engage in a globalized world. Higher Education institutions play an important role in promoting the development of their students’ Global Citizenship skills. Integrating teaching methods such as Service-Learning and establishing equally beneficial partnerships are ways to institutionalize Global Engagement within the educational systems. Evidently, educators themselves also play an important role within higher education institutions and should be trained and encouraged to act as facilitators of change and support students as they develop the competencies to become global citizens.