Benefits Of Global Citizenship

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To what extent should higher education aim to engender global citizenship in its student?
In recent years, many higher education institutions have begun to include global education into their curricula, policies and mission statements, with a view to creating effective global citizens. However, there is a considerable debate that even though global citizenship can be taught in colleges and universities, the impact of integrating such a curriculum could be negative. In addition, it may not have the same impact as educating students from a young age. In this essay, I will provide a background to globalization and an overview of global citizenship, and then I will explore the positive impact of engendering global citizenship in higher education but also the difficulties of integrating global citizenship skills and knowledge into curriculums in a practical way.
The term globalization is defined as the worldwide movement toward trade, economic, culture, and communication integration. According to Held (2004), it can be categorized into two different perspectives: firstly, optimistic globalists who believe that globalization is transforming society in only positive ways and secondly, pessimistic globalists, who argue that the world is ‘‘becoming less diverse and more homogeneous’’ (Held, 2004). Whichever perspective one adopts, a global citizen will be better able to understand and cope with the rapid change that globalization has created. The term global citizenship can be

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