Reflection on personal identity and global citizenship

Introduction

Globalization, technological advancement, and infrastructural development has greatly contributed to the enhancement of the world trade. With the development of the world trade, the interconnection between many countries across the globe has led to the exposure of global cultures thus affording individuals the opportunity to develop global identities. Ideally, this is the main reasoning behind the term the world being a global village. Considering these factors, it is therefore with much significance to educate people on global citizenship while also identifying with the outcome of such an action as they pertain to the development of the identity of individuals. This paper seeks to identify the importance of global citizenship education, its outcomes, and the environmental factors that influence such outcomes.

Importance of educating others on global citizenship

Today, the world faces many complexities, uncertainties, diversities and so much in equalities. For instance, many third world countries are only on the development path as compared to the first world countries that developed so many years back. Therefore, such countries still face many economical, social and political adversities that that makes them unequal to the first world countries. Social issues such as female genital mutilation, gender inequality, and gender-based violence, just to mention but a few, still face many countries especially in the African continent. Therefore, global education seeks to equip people with skills that enable them to solve these issues by deriving new ways of thinking and handling such issues that were never given priority in the early years.

Global education also teaches people to appreciate different social construction among communities around the globe by looking at how people are interconnected. Thus, global education explains the identity of individuals that is based on the understanding of different social construction such as gender, ethnicity and class. Therefore, to achieve global identity, global education helps in inculcating social impulse in individuals so that they can understand each other. Besides, global education also opens up people’s eye and minds to the realities that currently exist in the globalized world. With this, justice, human rights, and equity to all are achieved. Finally, the education also helps people understand the global problems and provide knowledge, skills, and attitudes that help people cope with the global challenges.

Outcomes of Global Citizenship

The outcomes of global citizenship pertaining to the development of an individual’s identity include; social justice, environmental sustainability, intergroup empathy, valuing diversity, and intergroup helping. On social justice, global education requires that countries that are well of should provide a helping hand to the less fortunate countries. This implies that basic services such proper health care, schools, food, clean water, and legal assistance should ideally be available to every individual across the globe regardless of the economic and political status of the country they come from.

On the other hand, global citizenship also necessitates environmental sustainability. This implies that people are supposed to use the natural resources in a manner that will enable future generations also to pursue their interests with the resources. Hence, individuals have a great responsibility to conserve the environment and only use the natural resources available for community good rather than pursuing personal wealth. On valuing diversity, a global citizen should be one with a person to want to know more about people’s cultures, their beliefs and attitudes so that social cohesion is created which results in a good bond among the communities of the world.

A global citizen who has undergone global education has a responsibility to act. This implies that such an individual seek to create harmony among people with different cultures or backgrounds after understanding the diversities that exist among different communities in the world. In addition, such a citizen also has the desire to give a helping hand to people to different people regardless of their nationality, race or ethnic background. Lastly, intergroup empathy requires that as a global citizen one should be able to empathize with people from different backgrounds, nationalities, and cultures. Thus, always provide a helping hand to such people who require help in any aspect.

The individual perceiving the values of people that are close to them such as family or friends normally influence the outcomes of global citizenship for the individual. This is the major environmental factor influences the outcomes of global citizenship after achieving a global education. For instance, after attending several environmental preservation classes, my colleagues and I formed a group to sensitize the world through constant website articles post monthly that implies the responsibility to act. In another case, I sent a goodwill donation to Kenya in the year 2007 after their post-election violence that left so many people displaced that indicates intergroup helping. Besides, the general education courses have also greatly contributed to the global citizenship outcomes by educating me on the need to accept different people’s culture through cultural studies. Secondly, the sociology course also helped me on how to socialize with different people from different backgrounds, race or ethnic group.

 

 

 

Reference

Reysen, S., & Katzarska-Miller, I. (2013). A model of global citizenship: Antecedents and outcomes. International Journal of Psychology, 48(5), 858-870.

 

YouTube,. (2016). Global Education and Global Citizenship. Retrieved 5 February 2016, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXzRHbISFW0