Research in Social Sciences and Technology

1-21

Authors: Charles S. White

Information technology is a tool, and its effects on global citizenship education (GCED) depend on who uses the technology, how it is employed, and for what purpose. In theory, technology use could provide significant benefits toward achievement of GCED goals. Globalization has demanded an educational response — to prepare the young for productive engagement with the emerging global community. Technology could play a positive role in effective GCED. But globalization has come at a cost; it has produced winners and losers. Among the losers are those economically displaced as manufacturing jobs move elsewhere; they are resentful of foreigner and fearful of an uncertain future. For them, global citizenship is anathema. They are susceptible to manipulation by malign forces eager to exploit any perceived rifts in the post-war world order. For them, technology is a weapon, as easily aimed at the aspirations of GCED as another apparent enemy. Identifying how technology can be employed positively in GCED is important, but not enough. Young people must also understand the conflict between globalization and alt-right nationalist populism, much of it carried out in the cyber-arena of the Internet and social media. New technologies have armed adversaries with tools to manipulate opinion and foment disorder. how technology is employed to undermine global citizenship education, as well as the democracies of the West. This they can witness in the gladiatorial combat between globalization and nationalist populism —between democracy and authoritarianism — in the cyber-arena. This article explores how technology is a double-edged sword – a tool for good and a tool for mischief. It draws from current research and news reporting on methods and effects of online manipulation. The article concludes by describing international efforts to defend against social media assaults on democracy and by identifying the new knowledge and skills citizens must acquire for positive civic engagement in the global cyber-arena.

45-69

Authors: Michael Kopish, Welisson Marques

With globalization and the increase of technology, collaborative work between institutions from different countries is a reality. Beginning in 2018, two teacher education programs, one in the United States and one in Brazil, developed a partnership to promote collaborative activities in curriculum and instruction, scholarship and research, and for student and faculty exchange. Critical pedagogy and social justice approaches to global citizenship education in teacher preparation guided the partnership’s collaborative activities toward the development of pre-service teachers’ global competencies and ability to integrate technologies as users and educators. This empirical research article presents an exploratory case study of a transnational, collaborative curricular project that leveraged technology in courses for pre-service teachers in the United States (n=12) and Brazil (n=10). The study explores the extent to which course content and activities facilitated pre-service teachers’ development of global competencies and ability to employ emerging technologies for learning and offers implications for practice.

86-100

Authors: Danielle P. Espino, Seung B. Lee, Lauren Van Tress, Toby T. Baker, Eric R. Hamilton

In 2017, the International Bureau of Education (IBE) at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) put forth seven global competences to address accelerating technological progress and increasing levels of complexity and uncertainty affecting many facets of society (Marope, 2017). These competences were used in examining participant discourse in a global, collaborative digital makerspace environment, where students ages 12 to 17 from six countries develop and share STEM-focused media artifacts. The participants communicate synchronously through video conference calls, referred to as online global meet-ups. The meet-ups allow students to present media artifacts they have created, share ideas, exchange information, and provide feedback. In this analysis, epistemic network analysis (ENA), a technique in quantitative ethnography, is used to examine the connections made among the IBE-UNESCO global competences in a meet-up involving participants from Finland, Kenya, and the U.S. ENA network models were created initially for the three sites, then further disaggregated by time segment to analyze how participant discourse patterns may have evolved in each context. Through this approach, the paper explores more broadly the interactive role of media making, cross-cultural engagement, and collaborative learning in the development of global competences in students.