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Week 10: Self-Assessment Reflection (500 words)

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Week 10: Self-Assessment Reflection (500 words)

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• What was the most significant learning about Global Development Education you gained in the module?

The most significant learning about Global Development Education that I have gained is the concept about power and how it shapes our actions, beliefs, values and whose voices are heard. Aspects such as our conceptions of globalisation and migration, how policy is made and whether poverty is being reduced are all influenced by those who have the power to make their knowledge and opinions ‘truth’. For instance, the World Bank has the power and the influence to create their definition of the International Poverty Line, indicating that poverty has hugely decreased. Those who have power can choose what is valued in policy and how resources are shared. Within the Global North, we have the power to view our own immigration as a positive, while constructing negative narratives of immigrants entering “our” country.

These narratives can also suggest that those in the Global North are powerless, creating a paternalistic relationship where we again place ourselves on a high moral pedestal and pat ourselves on the back for “helping the less fortunate and poor.” This creates hugely uncritical actions, where we don’t question whether what we are doing is actually helping, how systemic structures maintain and reinforce unequal societal power relations and how our thoughts and actions include stereotypes and biases. This learning was hugely impactful as it highlighted the limited range of voices and perspectives that are being heard and used to create our knowledge and societies.

• How has the module impacted my personal, professional and academic development?

The aspect of the module that has affected me most is the practice of the skill critical reflection. Before this module, many of the key concepts that were explored I had never deeply considered their multifaceted nature, interpreted them from different perspectives, or challenged the dominant narratives. I realised that most of my opinions were based on Global North perspectives that did nothing to challenge inequalities or injustices. As a teacher this is dangerous for several reasons. The way in which I was teaching was largely from a soft global development education, where I was not challenging children to question the different topics I was teaching them, explore the different causes and influences, or work to identify ways in which I and they could contribute to making meaningful changes in our and other’s lives.

This module has given me the skills to critically reflect on my own biases and beliefs, and to see the ways in which I am reproducing harmful societal power relations. Throughout my teaching career, I will have been responsible for the education of many children and during that time and after, the skill of critical reflection will be essential. Not only can I evaluate information presented to me, and make connections to different concepts and perspectives, but it will influence how I interact with others, the decisions I make and I can work on sharing this skill with others as I learn more. I don’t believe that I will ever fully master the skill of critical reflection, there are always going to be personal biases and areas that are difficult to face, that is why this is a skill that I must work to continuously improve upon. My learning involving critical education will not end here, but will continue to act as the foundation on which I teach.

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Week 9 - Reflection: Migration, Conflict and Peacebuilding

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Week 9 - Reflection: Migration, Conflict and Peacebuilding

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As Eten (2017) mentions, migration has clear benefits for both host countries and migrants. However, governments must create policies and programmes that ensure safe and sustainable migration and globalisation for all parties. Eten (2017) suggests that one of the main reasons for the negative perception of immigrants held by the Global North is that consideration has not been given for the the historical and modern colonial influences and social, economic and political causes for migration. To combat this, Eten (2017) advocates for post-colonial lens and critical developmental education (DE) campaigns that include immigrants’ voices. This reflects McGinnity et al.’s (2018) suggestion that social interactions between majority and minority groups largely influences societal attitudes towards immigration and diversity, particularly the quality of those interactions. In addition to critical DE, I suggest intercultural approaches to education can be used. Intercultural pedagogy encourages interactions between different societal groups, enhancing the “mutual belonging of nationals and non-nationals”, therefore creating more inclusivity and acceptance of difference within society (Kastoryano, 2018, p.2)

However, while the Irish education system theoretically mandates interculturalism (NCCA, 2005), there are still gaps between theory and practice that are supporting the exclusion of diversity (cultural, religious, linguistic) and migrants within the education system. This can be seen in the fact that while the Education Act (1998) promotes the right of parents to choose the type of school in which to send their children, 88.9% of schools in Ireland are under Catholic ethos, where the majority of non-denominational schools are located in Dublin (DES, 2020). In rural areas there is often no choice in the schools available as it is only feasible to provide one school to serve the community, as rural populations often have plateaued or are decreasing. Therefore the “provision of diversity through a choice of school under another patron is not an option” (Coolahan, Hussey, & Kilfeather, 2012, p. 73). This is an instance where theory and practice are not aligned to support the diversity within Ireland.

Institutional racism is considered as the “application of rules or regulations which do not make allowances for cultural differences” (NCCA, 2005, p. 13). Consequently, Bajaj’s (2019) description of indirect violence which includes “structural and cultural forms of violence” such as “racism, sexism, colonialism” and “culturally-condoned exclusion” applies.

Under these definitions and examples, I argue that the Irish education system, while slowly changing, still requires further work to support diversity from migration e.g. in supporting religious differences, where more effort needs to be placed on enhancing positive social interactions and cultural appreciation.

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Week 9 - Artifact: Syrian Family's Experience of Migration

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Week 9 - Artifact: Syrian Family's Experience of Migration

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This documentary follows a Syrian family over 3 years, during their time in Syria, where they experience the death of their father, to their temporary time in Turkey, and finally where they receive refugee status in Germany. It is an hour long, but if this is an area of interest to you I highly recommend it as it shows the daily impact of migration on individuals and tells the story from the perspective of a Syrian boy, girls, a mother and a father.

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Watani: My Homeland I Syrian Civil War I ARTE Documentary

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Week 8 - Reflection: Poverty and Inequality

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Week 8 - Reflection: Poverty and Inequality

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While education can help those who come from poor backgrounds to overcome obstacles, provide greater autonomy and control over their lives, there is a question about what kind of education can provide these skills, dispositions and autonomy. Reimer (2015) suggests that many schools today do not provide environments that support this development. Enhancing children's access to schools is simply not enough. This is seen also in the fact that although more children are attending school, this does not mean that they are learning (Reimers, 2015). Schools need to create environments where children feel valued and safe to be creative, innovative and try new ideas. At one point, Reimers (2015) points out that many political scientists suggest this type of school environment has not been created because economic and political elites would face challenges and pressure to change a system that currently benefits them. Skinner & O’Toole (2018, p.9) argue that interactions between students and teachers are “never neutral with respect to societal power relations” and to varying degrees either “reinforce or challenge coercive” societal power relations.

I believe that most teachers have their student’s best interests at heart. However, there is evidence that teachers often revert back to how they were taught as students as they experienced positive learning from these approaches (Oleson & Hora, 2013) or that they “apply what they learn if they are convinced it is a better way to teach students” (Cox, 2014). Schools have the ability to challenge the existing distribution of capital and power, though not enough is being done to do this (Reimer, 2015). I argue that further support needs to be given to teachers in employing more critical pedagogies through continuous professional development. However, this also requires supportive school environments and a restructuring of the education system where programmes and supports are created and provided for teachers.

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Since the financial crisis, the number of billionaires have doubled. Oxfam’s 2014 inequality report shows that the 85 richest individuals have as much wealth as the poorest half of the world. If the worlds wealthiest were taxed 1.5%, it could raise 74 billion US dollars. This would be enough to fill the gaps in funding needed to send all children in the poorest 49 countries to school and provide health services (Oxfam, 2020). They argue that privatisation, government concessions and failure to fund public services has exacerbated this inequality.

Wealth and income can be either privately or publicly owned. While national wealth has increased, more capital is becoming privatised, which means that governments are becoming poorer. This limits their ability to tackle inequality and fund public services. These trends can be seen in the graph from the World Inequality Database which show that public capital has been decreasing, while there has been huge increases in the privatisation of wealth (Alvaredo, Chancel, Piketty, Saez, & Zuchman, 2018).

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As Williams (1989; cited in Apple, 2017) argues, creating "fully participatory critical democracy requires providing the conditions that make it possible for all people to actually fully participate."  The linked article describes the presence of student voice within the Irish education system.  After the ratification of the UN Charter on the Rights of the Child in 1992, Ireland's main method of including student voices in decision making involved setting up student councils in post-primary schools. However, the White Paper on Education (1995) which first proposed student councils did not even have students present at this first meeting (Fleming, 2015). The article finds a general lack of involvement of student voices in educational policy. Second, the article suggests that student councils are acting as token mechanisms for student voices and"deep, person-centred student voice reflecting rights, participative democracy and active citizenship" is not being achieved (Fleming, 2015, p. 235). Finally, the article suggests that the introduction of school self-evaluations are the largest advancement in the inclusion of student voices, particularly within classroom practice.

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Week 7 - Reflection: Democracy and Social Justice

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Week 7 - Reflection: Democracy and Social Justice

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Apple (2017) highlights that there are dominant and subordinate groups in society. The dominant and powerful dictate what social and cultural capital is valued. Teachers, in combination with the curriculum set by the government, decide what information is taught to children. This presents Apple’s (2017, p.903) point for the need to interrogate the “we” and whose perspectives are being taught as the truth and chosen as “legitimate knowledge.” For instance, as Rizvi & Lingard (2009, p. 6) note that policies often use “we” “to represent their desired or imagined future as being in the public interest, representing the public good. As a result they often mask whose interests they actually represent.” This “selective tradition” (Apple, 2017, p. 904) results in social narratives and societal values that include or exclude groups and reproduce societal power relations.

As a teacher my beliefs and biases, both positive and negative, are overtly and covertly conveyed to the children I teach. These include messages about the child’s identity, culture, languages, place in society etc. It is my responsibility to analyse what societal power relations and norms I am reproducing. This is especially important as teachers can have huge positive or negative effects on students. For instance, some teachers can have deficit perspectives of EAL student’s academic and linguistic abilities (Van Avermaet, 2018). This can result in teachers asking these pupils less questions, generally reducing student participation. This often develops a “futility mindset” in the child, where they believe everything they do is destined to fail, resulting in a self-fulfilling prophesy (Van Avermaet, 2018).

Both at individual level (teachers for instance) and at governmental and societal level, our values need to be interrogated to identify whose perspectives are being ignored and excluded. This involves the process of “repositioning” where we must consider our world from the perspective of the dispossessed in order to restructure systemic barriers and processes that maintain oppression and inequality (Apple, 2017)

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McBride & Schubotz (2017) discuss schools' roles in influencing transgender and gender non-conforming (TGNC) youths' experiences in education. One area not discussed was how schools influence teachers if they identify as part of the LGBTQIA+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and/or Questioning, Intersex, Asexual) community. This article references a report that finds that in 2020, there were 4,000 teachers who did not feel comfortable sharing their sexual orientation or gender identity, fearing it would negatively impact their job prospects. One teacher was even told not to let parents find out that he was part of the LGBTQIA+ community. How can students feel supported when teachers themselves do not feel comfortable sharing their sexual orientation or gender identity?

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Teachers ‘fear for job prospects if they reveal LGBT identity’

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There are about 4,000 primary teachers across Ireland who are uncomfortable revealing their LGBT identity to their employers, a conference heard.

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Week 6 - Reflection: Gender and Diversity

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Week 6 - Reflection: Gender and Diversity

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A new Relationships and Sexuality Education (RSE) programme, called Flourish was created by the Irish Bishops' Conference for primary schools in 2021. Although not compulsory, it is designed for Catholic schools, which make up 88.9% of primary schools in Ireland (DES, 2020). This removes the right enshrined in Ireland's Education Act 1998 which states “right of parents to send their children to a school of the parents’ choice” (Government of Ireland, 1998, p.10).

Regarding the teaching of LGBTQI+ rights and identities, the introduction to the programme states that "the Church’s teaching in relation to marriage between a man and a woman cannot be omitted" (CPSMA, 2021b, p. 3). Secondly, two of its strands in the senior classes state that "Sex is a gift from God. It belongs in committed relationships," followed by  "Sexual love belongs within a committed relationship. Marriage as a sacrament of commitment" (CPSMA, 2021, a, p. 1-2). These core strands create a hierarchy for 'types' of relationships, implying some are better, or more 'moral' than others. McBride & Schubotz (2017) report that students interviewed in schools with a "conservative Christian ethos reported that knowledge regarding TGNC identities was actively suppressed and non-heterosexual identities were discussed in a defamatory way."

Regarding the lecture we had on this topic, the idea of exposure arose, where exposure results in greater acceptance and understanding. This is reflected in McGinnity et. al.'s (2018) research between minority and majority groups in society. However, 17% of primary pupils and 1/3 secondary school students attend single-sex schools, separating boys and girls from being educated with one another from as young as the age of 4 (Moloney, 2020).  Deputy Aodhán Ó Ríordáin, the TD Spokesperson on Education, Enterprise and Trade, argues that "when you're trying to tackle gender inequality, it's more difficult to tackle gender inequality when you have a school system as segregated on gender lines as Ireland" (Ó Ríordáin, 2020). Dillon (2019) argues that men need to be included in feminist initiatives to achieve equality, global prosperity, protection and participation. Feminism isn’t just about women. It's also concerned with societal power relations, constructs of gender identity and roles and relationships of other marginalized groups.

McBride & Schubotz (2017) acknowledge schools' role in the reproduction of societal power relations and social norms. Education that empowers students cannot be achieved without the restructuring of schools' administration, culture and ethoses which have been designed to suit the dominant in society.

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This graph from Pinker (2018) shows the decrease in sexual and physical abuse and victimisation of children in school between 1990 and 2010. This highlights a more optimistic view for the effects that human rights advocacy is having.

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My understanding of human rights has drastically changed this week. I had originally taken human rights for granted, considering them from the natural scholarly perspective, where they are something that is a given for each person. However, Dembour (2010) highlighted the different perspectives from which human rights can be considered; natural, protest, deliberative and discourse. These highlighted my lack of criticality and knowledge, and flawed thinking in the area. For instance, the protest perspective which considers that human suffering is always changing and consequently the aim to eliminate or sustainably reduce human rights violations must always be fought for, therefore meaning human rights can never be fully attained. This perspective fully acknowledges the violations to people’s human rights, and that even though human rights are universally deserved, they are often ignored.

This raised the question for me, ‘how can countries ignore human rights?’ ‘What are the structures in place, if any that enforce the human rights?' IHREC (2015) highlight some of the main systems in place to promote human rights include the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Human Rights Council, the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and European Convention on Human Rights. Human rights are generally represented through regional or international treaties and legislation where they form a legal statement. It is the responsibility of the Governments to fulfil, respect and protect human rights.

However, this highlights to me the ability of countries to bend human rights to suit them. For instance, more than 150 out of the 193 UN countries engage in torture (Posner, 2014). The US partake in waterboarding and placing prisoners in stress positions but argue that these do not fall under the definition of torture (Waldman, 2014).

This leads me to question are human rights effective? Women are still in subordinate positions in society, children are still engaging in child labour, people still live without food or shelter. However, Pinker (2018) argues that in general, human rights and equality have been increasing. For example, regarding children, there have been significant declines in sexual abuse, bullying, and corporal punishment. Corporal punishment has been outlawed in more than 50% of countries globally. In 2012, globally, 16.7% of children worked one hour a week or more, 10.6% worked in child labour, and 5.4% worked in hazardous environments. This percentage is still too high; however, it is now half the amount that is was fifteen years ago. This information should provide hope, that the continued effects of human rights efforts can progress to have further positive impacts.

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Dr. Syukuro Manabe, Dr. Klaus Hasselmann and Dr. Giorgio Parisi won the Nobel Prize for demonstrating humanity's role in climate change. Their research has highlighted the link between carbon emissions and increasing global temperatures. They used their work to create a model, giving more accurate predictions of the effects of climate change.

The goal of the Bicycle Model of Climate Change Education is to provide "a holistic approach that combines scientific understanding of the climate change phenomenon with knowledge of humanist-societal causes and consequences" (Cantell, Tolppanen, Aarnio-Linnanvuori, & Lehtonen, 2019, p. 4). The findings from these scientists can contribute to this aim. This is evident from the description of their research as helping us to understand climate change, which “involves fluctuations that come from the interaction of many, many moving parts,” (Yllanes, 2021, as cited in (Metz, Santora, & Engelbrecht, 2021)

This information supports educators in using every aspect of the Bicycle Model. For instance, their research supports students' knowledge about climate change, its causes and effects (wheels). It encourages us to think about humanity's influence on climate change (frame) and to think about the future we may face (handlebars).

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The work of Syukuro Manabe, Klaus Hasselmann and Giorgio Parisi "demonstrate that our knowledge about the climate rests on a solid scientific foundation," the committee said.

Syukuro Manabe of Princeton University, Klaus Hasselmann of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg, Germany, and Giorgio Parisi of the Sapienza University of Rome were awarded the prize in Physics in Stockholm on Tuesday. Credit... Jonathan Nackstrand/Agence France-Presse - Getty Images

Three scientists received the Nobel Prize in Physics on Tuesday for work that is essential to understanding how the Earth's climate is changing, pinpointing the effect of human behavior on those changes and ultimately predicting the impact of global warming.

The winners were Syukuro Manabe of Princeton University, Klaus Hasselmann of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg, Germany, and Giorgio Parisi of the Sapienza University of Rome.

Others have received Nobel Prizes for their work on climate change, most notably former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, but the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said this is the first time the Physics prize has been awarded specifically to a climate scientist.

"The discoveries being recognized this year demonstrate that our knowledge about the climate rests on a solid scientific foundation, based on a rigorous analysis of observations," said Thors Hans Hansson, chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics.

Complex physical systems, such as the climate, are often defined by their disorder. This year's winners helped bring understanding to what seemed like chaos by describing those systems and predicting their long-term behavior.

In 1967, Dr. Manabe developed a computer model that confirmed the critical connection between the primary greenhouse gas - carbon dioxide - and warming in the atmosphere.

That model paved the way for others of increasing sophistication. Dr. Manabe's later models, which explored connections between conditions in the ocean and atmosphere, were crucial to recognizing how increased melting of the Greenland ice sheet could affect ocean circulation in the North Atlantic, said Michael Mann, a climate scientist at Pennsylvania State University.

"He has contributed fundamentally to our understanding of human-caused climate change and dynamical mechanisms," Dr. Mann said.

Syukuro Manabe of Japan in Sweden in 2018. He demonstrated how increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere lead to increased temperatures on the surface of the Earth. Credit... Johan Nilsson/TT News Agency Via, Afp-Getty Images

About a decade after Dr. Manabe's foundational work, Dr. Hasselmann created a model that connected short-term climate phenomena - in other words, rain and other kinds of weather - to longer-term climate like ocean and atmospheric currents. Dr. Mann said that work laid the basis for attribution studies, a field of scientific inquiry that seeks to establish the influence of climate change on specific events like droughts, heat waves and intense rainstorms.

"It underpins our efforts as a community to detect and attribute climate change impacts," Dr. Mann said.

Klaus Hasselmann, the German physicist and climate researcher, at a news conference in Madrid in 2010. He created a model that links weather and climate. Credit... J J Guillen/EPA, via Shutterstock

Dr. Parisi is credited with the discovery of the interplay of disorder and fluctuations in physical systems, including everything from a tiny collection of atoms to the atmosphere of an entire planet.

"The main thing about his work is that it is incredibly eclectic," said David Yllanes, a researcher with the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, a nonprofit research center. "Many important physical phenomena involve collective behavior that arises out of fundamentally disordered, chaotic, even frustrated systems. A system that looks hopelessly random, if analyzed the right way, can yield a robust prediction for a collective behavior."

These ideas can help understand climate change, which "involves fluctuations that come from the interaction of many, many moving parts," Dr. Yllanes said.

But Dr. Parisi's effect on climate science is small compared to his impact across many other fields, including mathematics, biology and computing. This involves everything from lasers to machine learning.

Giorgio Parisi on the balcony of his residence in Rome, on Tuesday. Credit... Alessandra Tarantino/Associated Press

Dr. Manabe and Dr. Hasselmann will split half of the approximately $1.1 million prize. The other half will go to Dr. Parisi, whose work was largely separate from that of the other two. After the prize was awarded, many climate scientists said they were only marginally aware of Dr. Parisi's work - or had not heard of him at all.

Dr. Manabe said in a phone interview that five days ago a group of Japanese journalists contacted him saying they had heard a rumor that he would soon win the Nobel Prize. But he did not believe them.

Then, early this morning, he received a phone call from the Nobel committee.

"That's when I believed I had won," he said.

Three hours after the prize was announced, Dr. Manabe said he was not aware he was sharing the prize with two others. He praised Dr. Hasselmann's work and how it built on his own, but said he was not familiar with Dr. Parisi.

After taking the call from the committee, Dr. Manabe parsed through the list of past winners of the Physics prize, before realizing this was the first time the prize has been awarded for climate science.

"I think they have made a point of choosing something that is critical to society," he said.

All three scientists have been working to understand the complex natural systems that have been driving climate change for decades, and their discoveries have provided the scaffolding on which predictions about climate are built.

The importance of their work has only gained urgency as the forecast models reveal an increasingly dire outlook if the rise in global temperature is not arrested.

In August, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, a body of scientists convened by the United Nations, released a report showing that the nations of the world can no longer stop global warming from intensifying. The global average temperature will rise 2.7 degrees Celsius by century's end even if all countries meet their promised emissions cuts under the Paris Agreement. That temperature rise is likely to bring more extreme wildfires, droughts and floods, according to a United Nations report released in September.

The IPCC report says that nations have a short window in which to curb fossil-fuel emissions and prevent the worst future outcomes. And that work builds directly on Dr. Manabe's models.

"The climate scientists of today stand on the shoulders of these giants, who laid the foundations for our understanding of the climate system," said Ko Barrett, senior adviser for climate at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, who is also vice-chair of the IPCC.

Robert Kopp, a climate scientist at Rutgers University who also worked on the IPCC report, called Dr. Manabe a critical figure in the rise of climate science in the mid-1960s.

"He took the weather models that were beginning to emerge in the period after World World II and turned them into the first climate models," he said.

Piers Forster, a climate scientist at the University of Leeds in England, called Dr. Manabe's 1967 paper detailing these models "arguably the greatest climate-science paper of all time."

Dr. Barrett also hailed Dr. Hasselmann and Dr. Parisi for expanding on this work and praised the Nobel Committee for showing the world that today's climate studies are grounded in decades of scientific work. "It is important to understand that climate science is built on basic foundations of physics," she said.

Dr. Manabe is a senior meteorologist and climatologist at Princeton University. Born in 1931 in Shingu, Japan, he earned his Ph.D. in 1957 from the University of Tokyo before joining the U.S. Weather Bureau. In the 1960s, he led groundbreaking research into how increased levels of carbon dioxide lead to higher temperatures on the surface of the Earth. That work "laid the foundation for the development of current climate models," according to the Nobel judges.

Dr. Hasselmann is a German physicist and oceanographer who greatly advanced public understanding of climate change through the creation of a model that links climate and chaotic weather systems. He is a professor at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg. He received his Ph.D. in 1957 from the University of Göttingen in Germany before founding the meteorology institute, which he was head of until 1999. He is also the founder of what is now known as the Global Climate Forum. In 2009, Dr. Hasselmann received the 2009 BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Climate Change.

Dr. Parisi is an Italian theoretical physicist who was born in 1948 in Rome and whose research has focused on quantum field theory and complex systems. He received his Ph.D. from the Sapienza University of Rome in 1970. In 1980, he was responsible for discovering hidden patterns in disordered complex materials. He is a professor at the Sapienza University of Rome.

Referring to forecasts for the changing climate at a news conference after the prize was announced, Dr. Parisi said, "It's clear that for the future generation, we have to act now in a very fast way."

The physics prize went to Roger Penrose, Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez for their discoveries that have improved the understanding of the universe, including work on black holes.

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded on Wednesday to Benjamin List and David W.C. MacMillan for their development of a new tool to build molecules, work that has spurred advances in pharmaceutical research and allowed scientists to construct catalysts with considerably less impact on the environment.

On Wednesday, the Chemistry prize will be announced in Stockholm.

The prize in Literature will be announced in Stockholm on Thursday. Read about last year's winner, Louise Glück.

The Nobel Peace Prize will be announced on Friday in Oslo. Read about last year's winner, the World Food Program.

On Monday, the prize in Economic Sciences will be announced in Stockholm. Last year's prize was shared by Paul Milgrom and Robert Wilson.

Henry Fountain contributed reporting.

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Nobel Prize in Physics Awarded for Study of Humanity's Role in Changing Climate

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The work of Syukuro Manabe, Klaus Hasselmann and Giorgio Parisi "demonstrate that our knowledge about the climate rests on a solid scientific foundation," the committee said. Three scientists received the Nobel Prize in Physics on Tuesday for work that is essential to understanding how the Earth's climate is changing, pinpointing the effect of human behavior on those changes and ultimately predicting the impact of global warming.

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Week 4 - Reflection: Climate Change Education

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Week 4 - Reflection: Climate Change Education

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Teachers’ CCE approaches can be negatively influenced: One of the most striking points from this week’s readings is that teachers in the Irish education system have a huge influence over what is taught about climate change (Waldron, Mallon, Barry, & Martinez Sainz, 2020). This is reflected in Goren & Yemini’s (2017, p.176) article where they describe Ireland’s “pick-and-choose strategy” surrounding its civics curricula. Particularly, teachers may decide the Climate Change Education (CCE) content and the depth to which it is taught. The depth of this teaching may be negatively influenced by teachers’ lack of knowledge of climate change education (CCE), overemphasis on local actions, fear surrounding CCE’s politicisation and negative reactions from parents and the community (Waldron, Mallon, Barry, & Martinez Sainz, 2020). Consequently, it is important that teachers are well informed about CCE and supported in their teaching.

Contradictory policy: However, Waldron et. al. (2020) argue that contradictions exit within educational policy on CCE. For instance, they note that conflicting terms such as “economic growth” and “sustainability” can arise within the same document. This highlights Rizvi & Lingard’s (2009) argument that policy is constructed from a particular perspective and that contexts can be presented differently to suit proposed policy. This shows a lack of cohesion, criticality or desire for transformation of the ideological, economic and systemic drivers of climate change. Moreover, it implies poorly developed CCE policies and resources to support teachers.

Limited support against criticism: Additionally, even if critical policies and programmes are designed, there is evidence that if they are criticised, the government may not support teachers in their implementation. For instance, in Case Study 1, a spokesperson from the Department of Education distanced the division from the resource created to support CCE at junior certificate level when it was criticised by the IFA (Waldron, et. al., 2020). This adds to the negative environment within which teachers must teach CCE, adding to their reluctance.

While there are large strides being made to support teachers’ professional development in CCE in Ireland, more needs to be done to create critical policies and support teachers in their implementation.

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Week 3 - Artifact: Global Citizenship Education within the Irish Curriculum

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Week 3 - Artifact: Global Citizenship Education within the Irish Curriculum

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I searched the Curriculum Documents for the key words "global" and "citizen" to see what was being discussed about global citizenship education within the Irish primary curriculum. I have attached the PDF, organised by subject. The words highlighted in purple show the verbs (skills/ values) that the curriculum focuses on and wish to promote. The words highlighted in blue are the key words that I chose that highlighted in particular that statement's connection to global citizenship education.

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Global Citizenship Education within the Irish Curriculum

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Week 3 - Artifact: Assessing Teacher's Skills, Knowledge and Dispositions

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Week 3 - Artifact: Assessing Teacher's Skills, Knowledge and Dispositions

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Goren & Yemini (2017) describe how teacher attitudes towards global citizenship education influences how they teach. Consequently, it is important for teachers to reflect on their own biases, perceptions, knowledge and skills to identify areas in which they can improve. "The Globally Competent Teaching Continuum",  was created by Cain, Glazier, Parkhouse & Tichnor-Wagner (2014). It is a tool created for teacher's self-reflection on their competencies relating to teaching global citizenship education, specifically focusing on skills, knowledge and dispositions.

Once areas for improvement have been identified, tools and resources are provided to support the teacher in developing their skills and knowledge in the particular area.

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Week 3: Artifact - Including Global Development Education across the curriculum

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Week 3: Artifact - Including Global Development Education across the curriculum

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Goren & Yemini (2017) argue for the inclusion of Global Citizenship Education (GCE) across the curriculum, rather than its teaching as a discrete subject. This document, Global Perspectives, although created for the Australian Education system, provides a list of topics highlighting how can be integrated across many subjects that could be useful to provide teachers in the Irish education system with ideas (Education Services Australia, 2011, p. 14-18). This highlights the relevance of the topic for students to their daily lives.

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Week 3: Reflection - Global Citizenship Education

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Week 3: Reflection - Global Citizenship Education

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One of the main findings from Goren & Yemini (2017) includes that fully qualified teachers often teaching global citizenship education (GCE) in a narrow and superficial manner. This is a result of them feeling ill-prepared, lacking practical resources, concerns around the politicization and possible controversial nature of GCE, the school environment (staff and parents) and the student’s backgrounds. Consequently, students do not see GCE’s relevance to their daily lives and see it as a separate and discrete subject.

To improve the depth in which GCE is taught, several areas could be addressed:

a)   Improving the perception among teachers surrounding GCE.

b)   Increasing the number of quality GCE resources provided to teachers.

c)   Teaching GCE as a “school-wide cross-curricular theme (Goren & Yemen, 2017, p.177).

The Development InterCultural Education (DICE) project provided a compulsory class in my 2nd and 3rd year B.Ed. This project stresses the importance of preparing student-teachers for work in multicultural settings and a globalized world (O’Toole, 2006). It provides both elective and compulsory courses on development and interculturalism in education colleges in Ireland. O’Toole (2006) makes several notes about student-teachers attending the course.

First, teachers often focus on local, rather than global development. DICE suggest 10 themes that support the integrated teaching of both local and global development, to combat the over-focus on local issues.

Second, often student-teachers place more importance on learning practical GCE activities they can use in class, rather than theoretical knowledge. Teachers such as this often teach GCE discretely and sporadically. A positive disposition and attitude towards GCE correlates with it being taught in a cross-curricular manner. O’Toole (2006) finds that often this positive disposition is tied to teacher’s past experiences.

Thematic and cross-curricular teaching has many benefits. For instance, Lipson, Valencia, Wixon, & Peters (1993) note that thematic approaches lead to meaningful teaching, where children can make connections between different subjects and see how one relates to the other. They argue that if children cannot see the relevance of what they are learning, they will not be able to apply their skills and knowledge to problem solving related to the area.

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Week 2 - Artifact: PISA and NAMER Assessments

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Week 2 - Artifact: PISA and NAMER Assessments

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What is PISA?
Ramirez et. al (2016) note the large increase in international assessments have increased as well as the number of countries participating in the tests. These are creating a common set of standards against which countries’ scores can be compared and ranked. These international assessments have a significant influence on educational policy design. For instance, the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is an test that takes place every three years, assessing 15 year-olds knowledge and skills in literacy, maths and science.

The Results.
These results have been used to rank Ireland within international standards. In 2009, PISA found a large decrease in Irish pupils’ literacy and mathematics skills. Breakspear (2012, p.15) reports PISA’s findings illustrate Ireland’s literacy performance as "average", mathematics performance as "below” average, and science as “above” average.

Specifically, regarding children from immigrant backgrounds where languages other than English or Irish are spoken at home, PISA finds native English/Irish speakers score 25 points higher on reading scores (Shiel et al, 2016).

Impact.
These PISA tests resulted in the revision of Ireland's a) curriculum standards, b) the improvement of national assessments, c) the monitoring of students’ academic outcomes (particularly at second level), d) the creation of national educational targets and d) the creation of strategies aimed at improving literacy and mathematics (Breakspear, 2012).

For instance, in response to the low results achieved in 2009 in literacy and mathematics, National Strategy: Literacy and Numeracy for Learning and Life 2011-2021 was established to develop strategies to improve these results.

National Assessments of English Reading and Mathematics (NAMER).
In response to this Strategy, national assessments such as the NAMER, were established to monitor Ireland’s progress in English, mathematics and science. the area. This assessment tests children in 2nd and 6th class.

NAMER’s 2014 results also replicate PISA’s findings, showing that children’s countries of birth and their home language have an influence on their academic success. NAMER’s main findings, as shown in the table above, find that:

a)    in general there is no significant difference between schools in reading and maths that a) had no children that speak languages other than English or Irish at home and b) schools that had some level of children that spoke languages other than English and Irish at home.

b)    at 2nd class level pupils that speak languages other than Irish or English at home have significantly lower mean scores in maths than children that speak English.

c)    at 6th class level, pupils who speak English at home have no significant advantage in maths over those that do not.

d)    at 6th Class Level, pupils in schools with more than 10% of students that speak languages other than English or Irish at home have significantly lower reading scores than those that whose students only speak English.

The international assessments conducted by PISA have been shown to have a huge effect on Ireland’s educational policies (re-evaluation of curriculum standards and aims), the establishment of initiatives such as the National Strategy: Literacy and Numeracy for Learning and Life 2011-2021 and the creation of additional national assessments, including NAMER.

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1. Immersion education: Is one of the most common methods of teaching languages in Ireland. It is where children are immersed in the language of the school with very little supports provided for them. Consequently, it is often called the 'sink or swim' approach (Skinner & O'Toole, 2018).

2. Monolingual perspectives: "the viewpoint that people who speak only one language, that is, monolinguals, are the norm and that bilinguals and multilinguals are exceptions to that norm" (Barratt, 2018)

3. NAMER: National Assessments of Mathematics and English Reading

4. NCCA: National Council for Curriculum and Assessment

5. PISA: Programme for International Student Assessment

6. Plurilingual classroom:  This is a classroom where multiple languages are learned to varying extents, cultural and linguistic difference is valued and communication across languages is promoted (Council of Europe, 2007).

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Week 2: Reflection - Educational Policy and Globalization

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Week 2: Reflection - Educational Policy and Globalization

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This week focused on educational policy and its globalisation. My undergraduate dissertation analysed the success of Ireland’s educational policies in supporting immigrant children. Globalisation’s influence on educational policies’ development is evident in Ireland’s educational policies. However, as Ramirez et. al (2016) note, these global recommendations can result in a gap between policy and practice.

While Ireland has historically had a somewhat limited experience with diversity, immigration since the Celtic Tiger has massively changed Ireland’s national identity. For instance, nearly 568,000 pupils are enrolled in primary schools in Ireland (DES, 2020), with 10% of those from immigrant backgrounds (Keane & Heinz, 2018). 182 languages are now also spoken in Ireland (CSO, 2017). This diversification requires the education system to adapt.

Rizvi & Lingard (2009) describes that policies are now “located within a global system” (p. 2) and “framed by broader discourses” (p.8). This is reflected in the Council of Europe’s recommendation for plurilingual education (DES, 2005). However, Ramirez et. al’s (2016, p.3) description of “loose coupling” between global educational policy and practice exists in the Council’s observation that Ireland has been slow to adopt plurilingual approaches compared to other countries (DES, 2005).

Reasons for this include large influences from historical nationalist ideologies (Wallen & Kelly-Holmes, 2006) and contemporary monolingual perspectives.  Monolingual perspectives are present in some teacher’s deficit views of immigrants’ abilities and home languages as a hindrance to academic achievement, despite contrary research (Skinner & O’Toole, 2018; Cummins, 1996).  This understanding is important as even if excellent educational policy exists, it is “mediated by the leadership practices within the school, as well as by the ways teachers interpret that policy and translate it into practice (Rizvi & Lingard, 2009, p. 5-6). Policy can exacerbate this monolingual view, where one of the Intercultural Guideline’s aims is to “raise awareness within the educational community of issues that arise from increasing linguistic diversity” (NCCA, 2005, p.5). This reflects Rizvi & Lingard’s argument that policy always presents issues from a particular viewpoint.

Understanding countries historical and contemporary contexts is important as this can influence the level of success of global educational policies.

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Week 1 - Artifact: The Danger of a Single Story

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Week 1 - Artifact: The Danger of a Single Story

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Bourne (2014) argues that many voices need to be presented in Global Development Education, particularly increasing the perspectives shared from the Global South. In this video, Adichie (2016) recalls that while growing up in Nigeria, the majority of the novels she was exposed to were from a Western perspective. This was reflected in the stories she wrote and the images she drew, which she assumed by nature had to include Western characters. She found it difficult to identify with these characters. Literature from the Global North dominates the market. Andreotti (2006, p.43) notes that globalisation is an "asymmetrical process" for different countries, where it is more possible for some than others. Those countries that struggle to globalise often have the movement of their perspectives and cultures restricted. This contrasts to globalised countries, where Andreotti (2006, p.46) argues that the North has "global reach", resulting in the "transfusion" rather than "diffusion" of ideas (Andreotti, 2006, p.46). Consequently, the North's assumptions are often promoted globally as the norm.

Development education from the Global South advocates for the increase of a variety of voices and perspectives, as well as challenging dominant ideologies (Bourn, 2014). This reflects Adichie's (2016) argument that care should be taken to ensure a ‘single story’ is not created, where particular cultures are represented as homogeneous and alien from our experiences. This is seen in Adichie's experience of moving to America, where her roommates were shocked to discover that a person from Nigeria was similar to them. This was because they had only seen representations that presented people from Africa as a homogeneous group that was different from them.

Moloney & O'Toole (2018) and Landt (2006) advocate for an 'Anti-Biased' approach to be used when selecting media and literature for children. This strategy aims to give true representations through creating a systematic rating system that identifies the cultural accuracy presented in literature. This includes the identifying whether literature used in the class presents different cultures and languages, accurately represents social issues and includes main characters from minority backgrounds.

This is in line with Liddy's (2013) description of implementing more critical forms of development education, where one's own perspectives and actions are reflected upon in order to take informed action. Therefore, I have a responsibility to ensure that information I provide in class is accurate and portrays a wide variety of cultural perspectives and voices.

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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: The Danger of a Single Story | TED

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Week 1 - Reflection: Key Concepts and Pedagogies

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Week 1 - Reflection: Key Concepts and Pedagogies

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Before starting this module on Global Development Education (GDE), I attended a class which aimed to promote inclusive education within Irish classrooms. The main focuses of this class were on inequalities and issues within the Irish education system, removing biases surrounding our understanding of the Global South and promoting diversity within the classroom. However, this one aspect of GDE which was not focused on within this class is the Global North’s role in causing and maintaining unequal power relations between the Global North and South.

This class promoted the use culturally aware literature within the classroom so that children could see themselves represented or become more familiar with other cultures (Moloney & O’Toole, 2018). This aimed for children to see the similarities and differences between one another and develop an understanding of a shared universal human experience. Cummins (1996) argues that schools reproduce society’s values and ideas and therefore, teachers should approach this idea of a shared universal experience critically. This is because without the unpacking of historical imperialism and analysis of complex contexts, colonialism’s influence on the creation and maintenance of unequal power relations between the Global North and South may go ignored (Andreotti, 2006). This can consequently create a paternalistic view of the Global South where the responsibility of ‘civilising’ the Global South lies with the ‘supreme’ West and stems from a sense of morality rather than justice (Andreotti, 2006, p. 45). This can be seen in some school’s soft global development approaches towards funding Trócaire, where minimal critical teaching is provided. For instance, limited discussion surrounding the causes of the issues in that country, whether the money being provided is beneficial and the promotion of the idea that it is our moral responsibility to ‘do-good’ for the ‘inferior Other.’

Andreotti (2006) and Liddy (2013) argue that this perspective can be challenged through critical types of development education and literacy. As a teacher, it is important that I become more reflective and critical of my biases and actions so that I am not inaccurately and superficially teaching about topics related to GDE, therefore reproducing problematic perspectives.