Exploring aspects of global citizenship in undergraduate students at Universidad del Norte

Abstract

Exploring the potential contribution to global citizenship in an EFL learning environment may help university students, teachers, and administrators to better understand the meaning of global citizenship and identify more meaningful ways to exploit it in the language classroom as well as help other researchers to identify global citizenship topics of interest and their future applications in higher education. This paper reports a qualitative study on global citizenship education at Universidad del Norte, which aimed at exploring whether 21 undergraduate students showed aspects of global citizenship while involved in an English as a Foreign Language course based on intercultural communication. The study combined critical ethnography, document research, and qualitative content analysis. Participants kept a learning journal during the course and they answered a 15-question questionnaire at the end of the course. The data was interpreted and analyzed using qualitative content analysis in search of themes relevant to the interrelated cognitive, socioemotional, and behavioral global citizenship core dimensions. Results evidenced that knowledge, skills, values, and attitudes observed in students’ performance corresponded largely to the cognitive and socioemotional domain rather than the behavioral one and identified social connectedness and respect for diversity as the most prominent attribute among participants. Further research may be needed to explore if similar attributes can be found in other participants, provide a better understanding of the nature and development of such aspects, and assess citizenship levels more accurately.