Jing A. Williams, Bárbara C. Cruz, and Anatoli Rapoport
For our families, and all teachers around the world helping their students be a part of our global society.
We express our gratitude to our family members, who have been incredibly supportive as we worked on this book. We thank them for their patience and encouragement as we worked toward its completion.
We sincerely thank Dr. Toni Fuss Kirkwood-Tucker for her beautifully crafted Foreword. Her leadership in global social studies education has inspired generations of global social studies scholars to continue carrying the torch, lighting the paths of future educators.
We appreciate the National Council for the Social Studies’ steadfast leadership in global education, particularly in today’s turbulent times. NCSS’s commitment to a social education that is inclusive and respectful of all people supports our ongoing efforts.
Last but not least, we would like to thank the current and future social studies teachers who dedicate themselves to teaching with a global perspective. You are the ones that broaden our future generations’ horizons and equip them with the ability to live and work effectively and collaboratively in this interconnected global village.
Jing A. Williams is Associate Professor of Social Studies Education at the University of South Dakota. She teaches elementary and secondary social studies methods courses. She was the President (2018–2020) of the International Assembly of the National Council for the Social Studies. Her research interest focuses on the global perspectives in social studies education. She can be reached by email at Jing.Williams@usd.edu.
Bárbara C. Cruz is Professor of Social Science Education at the University of South Florida. She teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in curriculum and instruction, multicultural education, and global perspectives. In 2020 she was a Fulbright Scholar in Alicante, Spain investigating the use of visual art to teach about pressing social issues. She can be reached by email at bcruz@usf.edu.
Anatoli Rapoport is Professor of Curriculum and Instruction at Purdue University. He teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in social studies methods and international and comparative education. He is Director of Benjamin Franklin Transatlantic Fellowship and past editor of Journal of International Social Studies. He can be reached by email at rapoport@purdue.edu.
Toni Fuss Kirkwood-Tucker, Ed.D.
We aren’t going to have peace on Earth until we recognize the basic fact of the interrelated structure of all reality.
—Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr., 1967
The ubiquity of change of the 21st century is confronting humanity to the farthest corners of Mother Earth. The world’s people have never been so closely interconnected and interdependent with individuals and groups of all backgrounds and from all walks of life relentlessly pursuing their dreams across nation-states, clearly forming an international global community without borders. What joy if the people of the world regardless of age, ethnicity, gender, disabilities, political and religious affliation, sexual orientation, and socio-economic status would respect each other, acknowledge their differences, and realize that all humanity is their humanity.
Unfortunately, the world is also faced with unprecedented if not cataclysmic challenges impairing our fragile existence. For example, poverty and economic disparity, biases and bigotries, antiglobalism, genderism, sexism, xenophobia, racial and religious tensions are permeating societies. Political turmoil, increasing migrant and refugee crises, diseases, epidemic and pandemic viruses, terrorism, and cyberterrorism are creating hatred and fear. Environmental and ecological degradation with devastating effects of droughts, foods, melting icebergs, rising sea levels; animals making their home in the Arctic and Antarctic for millions of years losing their habitat; and, above all, the recurrent horrors of war are resulting in callousness, insensitivity, and avoidance.
Furthermore, Americans are experiencing a politically divided, deeply polarized country. Even though we are a nation of immigrants and with a history of diversity, our students are witnessing disinformation, lies, racist hatred, and growing White Supremist ideology resulting in grave human rights violations. The U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson decision overturning Roe v. Wade, assaults on the LGBTQ+ communities, voter repression, anti-immigrant sentiments, endangered academic freedom, and removal of certain books from public shelves threaten the very foundation of our democracy. The 2021 approval by the United States Congress to elevate the historic event of Juneteenth of the Civil War era to a national holiday was initially rejected by almost half of our country’s states.
In these threatening times in the United States and world, it is imperative that the feld of education on all levels engages in a radical paradigm shift in how we teach our children to participate in the improvement of the human condition before it is too late. Students—the future leaders of our global community—require the teaching of a global citizenship education that
prepares them to cultivate an all-encompassing global awareness of the world’s challenges. The next generation of citizens must develop competence to engage in both individual and collective national and global responsibilities to advocate solutions for the world’s dilemmas and become stewards of the planet, promoting conservation and respect for the environment.
The National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS), the United States’ largest professional organization for social studies educators, clearly recognizes the critical role social studies teachers play in the 21st century and beyond. To that end, NCSS (1994) professes that the “primary purpose of social studies is to help young people make informed and reasoned decisions for the public good as citizens of a culturally diverse, democratic society in an interdependent world” (p. 3). Moreover, the United Nations Educational, Scientifc, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO, 2022) in its report on Global Campaign for Education, advocates for “empowering learners of all ages to assume active roles, both locally and globally, in building more peaceful, tolerant, inclusive, and secure societies” (p. 422).
This book arrives at a most opportune time as the world’s grave calamities and unprecedented challenges are intensifying. It extends the 2005 bulletin, Social Studies and the World: Teaching Global Perspectives, authored by Merry M. Merryfeld and Angene Wilson, by addressing key trends that were only nascent 20 years ago.
This newly created book is an important, creative contribution to the evolving conversation on global pedagogy. It is crafted by three eminent international scholars of global education from leading public universities in the United States and provides a quintessential interdisciplinary and cross-curricular pedagogy of how secondary teachers can best integrate a global perspective in the social studies curriculum. The book begins with an overview of the historical development of global education and the absence of consensus on the defnition of global education by prominent global scholars. The sections that follow consist of chapters organized around core social studies subjects structured along fve essential aspects that include topics, vignettes, teaching approaches and strategies, key concepts, and resources.
The chapters are organized around social studies content areas most commonly taught at the secondary level in United States schools: U.S. History, World History, Geography, Civics and Government, Economics, Social and Behavioral Sciences, and Contemporary Events. For example, the U.S. History chapter covers the topics of women’s rights, child labor during the Industrial Revolution, American isolationism in the 1930s, and how these topics are connected to the larger world. The chapter on World History demonstrates the cross-national interplay during the era of imperialism between 1870 and 1914, the creation of “comfort women” of the Japanese military during World War II, human aspects of global wars, and global sustainable development after World War II. The Geography chapter addresses global climate change, human migrations across the globe, and the consequences of modernization on indigenous peoples affecting their cultures.
The importance of cultivating global citizens and their civic competence in the chapter on Civics and Government illustrates the responsibilities of youth in an increasingly interdependent world and the roles they must perform in the safeguarding of democratic institutions. The chapter on Economics posits the criticality of the interdependence of nations regarding international trade and the ethicality in the economic supply chain, global energy, and social media in the global marketplace. The chapter on Behavioral Sciences includes the signifcance of global identity and culture socialization. The fnal chapter of the book addressing Contemporary Events is informed with pressing global issues such as child labor on a global scale, the #MeToo Movement, and the plundering of nations’ priceless historical artifacts during confict or outright war exhibited in victors’ national museums.
After the introduction of each chapter and statement of topic to be covered, the second aspect of this book includes real-world classroom vignettes illustrating the importance of developing a global perspective in specifc content areas. The vignettes are based on real-life teaching experiences. They are synonymous with the concept of a “springboard,” the instructional practice social studies teachers are encouraged to employ at the beginning of lessons to stimulate student interest.
The third aspect of fve essential aspects of this carefully structured book demonstrates interdisciplinary teaching approaches and strategies that can be used to teach multiple topics from a global perspective. The strategies are classroom-tested and originate from years of classroom teaching experiences of the authors. In addition, the strategies refect a cross-curricular approach since social studies content areas are clearly and persistently interconnected. For example, topics in the Economics chapter intertwine with human geography addressed in the Geography chapter; selected topics in U.S. history are combined with basic geographical concepts. These crosscurricular connections are intentionally built into each chapter to offer teachers fexibility, choices, and intellectual rigor.
The book’s innovative teaching approaches and strategies include highly creative choices for teachers to use in the classroom, such as the strategies of whole-class questioning, discussion of stratifed questions, the think-pair-share format, and small group collaboration. Another pedagogy includes conducting oral history interviews which requires students to gather, preserve, and interpret the voices and memories of people, communities, and participants in past events. It asks students to reach out to communities to fnd guest speakers commensurate with the topic under study such as interviewing a veteran or refugee. Moreover, the See-Think-Wonder approach, which consists of students’ critical viewing and analysis of visual stimuli such as political cartoons, art, posters, and photographs, engages learners in a three-part process that encourages careful observation and engagement in evidence-based interpretation and analysis. The integration of visual forms
enhances well-balanced social studies instruction accessible to a wide range of diverse learners. A relatively newly developed teaching approach and strategy exhibited in the book to promote learning from a global perspective includes the concept of “greening.” The pedagogy requires students to refect on their daily lives and on the changes in behavior they and others might personally undertake to improve a condition. For example, UNESCO created an internal greening guide for their staff, offering concrete suggestions for environmentally conscious actions at work and in the home. In the social studies classroom, students can create their own “greening guide” specifc to their classroom, school, and community as they are identifying environmental issues to be addressed. Noteworthy in the teaching approaches and strategies used in the book is the recurrent theme of connecting the “local” with the “global” in developing a global perspective.
The fourth element of the organizational structure of this book located at the end of each chapter, exhibits a list of key concepts to reinforce understanding of diffcult abstract concepts. The succinct list enables teachers to emphasize the importance of new vocabulary learning in social studies instruction.
The fnal element of fve essential aspects of this carefully structured book includes a wide variety of resources ranging from primary resources, printed materials, historical fction materials, photographs, political cartoons, websites, and more.
A wide range of professional educators will beneft from this book. The primary group of educators includes secondary teachers who are required to teach mandated social studies curricula in public schools in the United States. The book offers them a golden opportunity to integrate a global perspective in their required as well as elective courses. A second group of professional educators beneftting from the book are faculty in teacher education programs in colleges and universities across the United States who have recognized the importance of preparing future teachers with a global perspective. A third and fourth groups beneftting from this book are pre-service teachers and graduate students in social studies education. The book will be a helpful companion to pre-service teachers as they begin their teaching career; graduate students will fnd the book an effective reference guide in teaching and research. A ffth group beneftting from the book are curriculum supervisors in public and private schools who are in search of globalized teaching materials in the social studies needed for professional development workshops and webinars. Finally, professional libraries at the secondary and tertiary levels in public and private schools and universities have the opportunity to offer easy access to this resource. The newly crafted book in how to teach the social studies from a global perspective is a powerful
addition to the art of pedagogy in the secondary social studies classroom. New content knowledge, classroom-tested teaching approaches and instructional strategies to teach multiple topics from a global perspective, classroom vignettes demonstrating convincing reasons why the development of a global perspective is critical in the global age, intriguing real-life examples relating to students’ personal lives, and the inclusion of visual forms enhance instruction for a wide range of diverse learners, promote stimulating classroom environments. The all-inclusive pedagogy of this book is embedded in challenging student thinking, encouraging them to make informed, reasoned, and ethical decisions as citizens of a culturally diverse, democratic society in an interconnected world. In-service and pre-service secondary social studies teachers and social studies education faculty in teacher education programs in universities will be able to create innovative learning environments that enable students to respect cultural diversity, appreciate the humanity of all people, accept divergent worldviews, become aware of the interconnectedness of the world, and strive to bring active change to a troubled world. This book also speaks to teachers, teacher education faculty, curriculum supervisors, and media specialists in other nations around the world in their efforts to improve the human condition.
In conclusion: In these portentous times we must declare our moral responsibility to confront the ways in which we are complicit in the hatred and violence embedded in communities in the United States and in societies around the world today. Rather than remain silent, teachers, teacher educators, curriculum supervisors, and media specialists in secondary social studies education in the United States and world must respond with the infusion of a global perspective into curriculum and instruction in order to respond to the pressing educational need in producing a global-minded citizenry that acknowledges multiple perspectives, an awareness of the state of the planet, cognition of cross-cultural phenomena, and knowledge of global dynamics affecting nations, so the youth of the world will be well informed about the criticality of decisions made by individuals, groups, and entire nations in improving or harming the human condition (Hanvey, 1975).
Then, and only then will we be able to have a more equitable, harmonious, humane, inclusive, passionate, sustainable, and peaceful world.
Global education in the United States is not a novel proposition. After World War II, countries began working collaboratively on projects through the newly founded United Nations (UN) and the United Nations Educational, Scientifc and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). With the advent of the Cold War, the U.S. government began investing in international education. In response to the Soviet Union’s launch of Sputnik in 1957, the U.S. Congress passed the National Defense Education Act that called for the funding of university foreign language and area studies centers throughout the United States (Tye, 2009).
For many scholars, the 1960s mark the era when global social studies education took hold in the United States. With the many political and societal changes occurring in the U.S. and the world, there was a decided focus on expanding and deepening understanding of other nations and peoples. Jan L. Tucker (1992) noted that the idea of a global education emerged from An Examination of Objectives and Priorities in International Education in U.S. Secondary and Elementary Schools , a landmark report funded by the Foreign Policy Association, in turn sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education.
Scholars began to write about global education in earnest in the 1970s (Zong et al., 2008). In his groundbreaking essay, “An Attainable Global Perspective,” Robert Hanvey (1975) elaborated on fve interdisciplinary dimensions regarding how to teach with a global perspective: perspective consciousness, state of the planet awareness, cross-cultural awareness, knowledge of global dynamics, and awareness of human choices. His scholarship has infuenced and continues to infuence social studies teachers as they prepare future generations. Since Hanvey, many scholars and educators have studied and written about global education, and the lack of consensus on the defnition of global education continues. Kirkwood (2001) analyzed the scholarly defnitions of global education since Hanvey (1975) to seek clarifcations. She found that “the incongruities of existing global education defnitions tend to be idiosyncratic rather than substantive” (p. 14). Two decades later, the defnitional ambiguities of global education still persist.
Scholars and organizations have conceptualized global education in different ways. Tye and Tye (1992) argued that global education is essential “at every grade level, in every curricular subject area, and for all children and adults” (p. 6). They conceived global education as involving two dimensions:
1. The study of problems and issues that cut across national boundaries, and the interconnectedness of the systems involved—economic, environmental, cultural, political, and technological;
2. the cultivation of cross-cultural understanding, which includes development of the skill of perspective-taking—that is, being able to see life from someone else’s point of view. (p. 6)
In 1997, Merry M. Merryfeld synthesized the conception of global education based on scholarship at the time and provided an inclusive defnition of global education, comprised of eight elements: human beliefs and values, global systems, global issues and problems, cross-cultural understanding, awareness of human choices, global history, acquisition of indigenous knowledge, and development of analytical, evaluative, and participatory skills (Merryfeld, 1997, as cited in Kirkwood, 2001, p. 13).
A decade later, Guichun Zong, Angene Wilson, and A. Yao Quashiga (2008) contended that “the central rationale for global education … rests on the necessity of preparing students for the increasing interconnectedness among people and nations that characterizes the world today” (p. 199). In 2016, the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) stated that global education “is attentive to the interconnectedness of the human and natural environment and the interrelated nature of events, problems, or ideas” (para. 6). In addition, of the ten NCSS themes, one of them particularly emphasizes global education ( GLOBAL CONNECTIONS), noting that “the realities of global interdependence require deeper understanding of the increasing and diverse global connections among world societies and regions” (NCSS, 2010, p. 22).
A continuing struggle for racial and gender equality and against social injustices in the frst decades of the 21st century added new themes and narratives in education. The attention to human rights, the fall of authoritarian regimes, and the promotion of democracy resulted in new opportunities for racial, ethnic, language, and gender groups that had been previously marginalized and excluded from active participation in political processes and development of global civic society. As a dynamic and introspective feld, global education brought a critical perspective to the previously unchallenged concepts and ideas. New demands and practices signifcantly transformed global education by adding a communal element to the discourse that resulted in the bourgeoning of critical global citizenship education. Critical global education is based on critical pedagogy, critical multicultural education, human rights education, and critical peace education that help students re-evaluate, create, and negotiate new meanings of participation and membership in global development through reviewing, critiquing, and refecting on contexts, policies, and institutions that defned the notion of global citizenship (Andreotti, 2006; Banks, 2004, 2014; DeJaeghere, 2009, Gaudelli, 2016).
Our world has never been as connected as it is today. International trade, instantaneous communications, pandemics, global supply chain disruptions due to regional conficts—these are just a few global issues that intersect daily with our students’ lives. If we expect our students to be globally aware and become future leaders with problem-solving skills, our curriculum must refect our current global realities. Global scholar Kirkwood-Tucker (2018) contends, “If we are to have any hope of a future made up of humanistic, collaborative, creative, and participatory problem-solvers, we must accept and embrace an educational charge that advances the criticality of a globalminded
citizenry” (p. xix). The statement echoes the purpose of social studies education by NCSS (1994), which is “to help young people develop the ability to make informed and reasoned decisions for the public good as citizens of a culturally diverse, democratic society in an interdependent world [emphasis added]” (p. 3).
It has been almost two decades since the NCSS published Social Studies and the World: Teaching Global Perspectives by Merryfeld and Wilson (2005). Yet, we continue to face many of the same global challenges: wars and conficts, climate change, and human traffcking, to name a few. We are also facing new issues—social media, artifcial intelligence, and an increasingly politically polarized nation and world—that bring their own set of challenges. Our world refects a closely interconnected global economy, cultural diffusion prompted by migration and technology use, and a citizenry that must critically evaluate a steady, daily infux of messages through multiple media sources. How do secondary social studies teachers help students understand these vital global issues that impact us all? Due to limited instructional time, mandated curriculum standards, and testing pressures, how can secondary social studies teachers be supported in incorporating a global perspective into their curricula, cultivating global awareness in their students? We hope this book will be a helpful resource for secondary social studies teachers who believe in the importance of global education, just like we do.
As mentioned earlier, just as different scholars have defned global education in varied ways, there are various approaches to teaching social studies with a global perspective. These approaches include critical global education (Andreotti, 2006; Busey & Bowie-Chin, 2021; Gaudelli, 2016; O’Connor & Zeichner, 2011; Parmenter, 2011; Pike, 2015; Subedi, 2010), peace education (Bickmore, 2009; Brock-Utne, 2000; Harris, 2008; Snauwaert, 2012), environmental education or education for sustainable development (Jelin, 2000; Rickinson et al., 2009; Scheunpfug & Asbrand, 2006; Vosburg-Bluem et al., 2022), human rights education (Osler & Starkey, 2000; Tibbitts & Kirchschlaeger, 2010; Torney-Purta & Barber, 2011), and global citizenship education (Gaudelli, 2009; Myers, 2006; Peters et al., 2008; Rapoport, 2009). Ultimately, this book is a methods book, illustrating for secondary social studies educators how they can incorporate a global perspective into their daily teaching. It does not address global education from any single approach. However, readers will fnd examples in this book that refect all the approaches mentioned above.
As its title suggests, this book focuses on teaching secondary social studies with a global perspective. The book provides practical teaching strategies undergirded by theories and frameworks in global social studies education (for theories and frameworks, see Merryfeld & Wilson, 2005). As we were writing, we ensured that the examples used in each chapter related to students’ lives, refected the human experience over time and space, considered ethical dimensions,
challenged students’ thinking, and engaged students in activities that hold personal meaning for them rather than those that had them passively receiving information (NCSS, 2023a).
The book is structured with fve essential elements. First, the chapters are organized around the social studies content areas most commonly taught in U.S. schools—U.S. History, World History, Geography, Civics and Government, Economics, and Social and Behavioral Sciences (including anthropology, sociology, and psychology). Some schools offer a course in contemporary issues, so readers will fnd the “Contemporary Events” chapter (Chapter 7) at the end, highlighting approaches that can be used in the future as new social issues emerge.
Second, each chapter begins with a set of topics, which identify major ways of promoting globalmindedness through the content area discussed in the chapter. The teaching ideas presented in each chapter refect the topics listed at the beginning of each chapter.
After the topics and an introduction in each chapter are presented, readers will fnd a classroom vignette illustrating the importance of developing a global perspective in the specifc content area. The vignettes are based on real-life teaching experiences, adding another practical layer to the book. After presenting various teaching and learning activities, at the end of each chapter, we list key concepts that appear in that chapter and further resources for teachers and students to explore.
Each chapter features classroom-tested strategies. Although we cannot cover all topics in social studies, we selected several often-taught topics in each content area. As we present each topic, we showcase classroom-tested teaching approaches and strategies. We specifcally chose instructional strategies that can be used to teach multiple topics from a global perspective. We hope readers will see the cross-disciplinary instructional utility of the strategies highlighted.
Finally, the strategies in the book refect an interdisciplinary approach. Social studies content areas, by their very nature, are interconnected. For example, many teachers may fnd it helpful to teach history while discussing geography. When reading the economics chapter (Chapter 5), readers will fnd that many topics necessarily intertwine with human geography (Chapter 3). These crosscurricular connections were intentionally built into each chapter. We also purposefully integrated images throughout, resulting in what we hope is well-balanced social studies instruction accessible to a wide range of diverse learners.
When we were writing, we imagined ourselves as secondary social studies teachers looking for teaching strategies to integrate a global perspective into their classrooms. The teaching strategies in this book are classroom tested and come from the authors’ years of classroom teaching experiences and work with practitioners. Thus, we hope a wide cross-section of social studies educators will beneft from this book and that it will be a helpful addition to teachers’ toolboxes and professional libraries.
This book will also be helpful to our colleagues in teacher education. Social studies methods instructors may draw ideas from this book, use them as case studies for discussion, and create
lessons or units to enhance their students’ global awareness. Pre-service social studies teachers will fnd this book helpful as they begin their teaching careers. Graduate students will also fnd this book a helpful reference for their work in social studies education in general and global education in particular.
Finally, this book intends to help school curriculum supervisors when they are looking for teaching materials with a global perspective in social studies education. It may be helpful as they design curricula or professional development workshops that refect a global perspective. Social studies professional development specialists can use this book to create global studies webinars or in-person professional development workshops.
As we mentioned, this book is organized by each social studies content area. Although it may be tempting to read only the chapter that pertains to the area(s) teachers teach, we strongly recommend that teachers review all chapters because the teaching strategies introduced in one content area, such as U.S. history, may be implemented in another, such as economics. And because we adopted an interdisciplinary approach, teachers will fnd relevant examples in different chapters. If teachers need an idea to build their lesson plans, the most effcient way is to start from the Table of Contents or the Index. We suggest that practitioners look at the Table of Contents frst to fnd the content area they are teaching. Then, read that chapter to get teaching ideas and strategies to build their lesson plans. They should then peruse the contents of other chapters for cross-curricular connections. Last, readers should also check out the Further Resources section at the end of each chapter to explore the topics showcased in the chapter.