Global citizenship education is piquing the interest of elite schools around the globe. As we begin to live in an increasingly globalized world, schools are working to make this a priority for students as they begin to approach large global issues. Through this new trend in education, schools are hoping to help students gain a better understanding of their place in the increasingly interconnected world we live in as well as become more aware of how everyone else fits in. This aims to create a sense of community among the people of the world where everyone has a unique place and role. It also aims to create solidarity in solving global issues, empowering students to feel as though they have a stake in world challenges. Furthermore, “it is a form of civic learning that involves students’ active participation in projects that address global issues of a social, political, economic, or environmental nature” (United Nations). Despite these definitions, there remains a lot of discourse around the true meaning of global citizenship, as it means many different things for different institutions around the world.
Students at the Everdeen school in Australia are encouraged throughout their education to think like global citizens and to engage in global citizenship education, which takes a particular form. This involved a variety of experiences both within the school’s curriculum and through extracurricular opportunities. Many of the interviewed students discuss the ways that they can connect with the world in a global sense. For example, Everdeen has a campus in China, which aims to support the globally connected nature of the school. This campus is located right outside of Beijing and caters to Everdeen students who can study abroad, as well as students from China. This works to support their mission of global citizenship, as students can live in China and learn more about the country while simultaneously increasing their social networks and capital through language and culture.
Many Everdeen students engage in global citizenship education through community service projects. One of the interviewed students discussed his experience volunteering in Papua New Guinea with the school. He got to travel there and help with different service projects. He discussed how this made him feel more connected with the culture and the people there that he worked and interacted with. This opportunity, only provided by elite schools like Everdeen, has given its students access to new global experiences as well as deepened cultural understandings. The same student also discussed his volunteer position as a tutor for a Sudanese student. He describes his perceived impact on that student’s academic experience: “It’s opened another door as to how, like, you can help them with their English in a way and try doing it beyond this level”. Through his experiences with Everdeen, engaging in global community service, the student has formed global connections and feels that he has made a global impact. Although that is very impactful for both students involved, it is important to assess how the perceived impact can differ from reality.
Global citizenship education, while seen as successful and valuable by some, has been widely critiqued by others. Scholars who have studied global citizenship education argue that it can be rooted in educational opportunities for students rather than focusing on emphasizing community and humanity (Howard, 2020). This goes along with the many patterns that researchers notice when studying elite institutions. Many elite institutions aim to educate their students in a traditional sense while also working to advance their students socially and economically. Following frameworks like global citizenship education allows elite institutions to promote their students and allows them to access exclusive global opportunities and networks. For students who live in an increasingly globalized world, it continues to become more important that they have global awareness and a sense of working as a collective to solve the world’s problems. As seen in the student example, there is a lot of emphasis placed on what the Everdeen student gets out of their global experiences rather than just focusing on their impact and global citizenship. This calls into question the effectiveness of global citizenship education as it is not completely clear, at least in the case of the Everdeen School, how well the goals of GCE are being achieved.
Sports and athletics play an essential role in the Everdeen School experience. Students at the Everdeen School are required to participate in sports, making it a key part of many students’ social lives as well as their developing identities. The required nature of sports also situates athletics as a key value of the Everden School. Although they are elite in an academic context, they also further their eliteness through extracurricular activities. The school offers many different sports at eight different levels. Each season, the school offers countless options for sports students can take part in, ranging from swimming and sailing in the summer to basketball and soccer in the winter, to golf and rugby in the spring. As students get older and progress through their Everdeen education, the sporting options become more expansive, allowing students to follow their specific interests.
Sports was one of the key topics in the interviews that were conducted with Everdeen students. When asked about sports at Everdeen, the interviewed students discussed the key role that sports and athletics play in defining their daily routines and social circles. Athleticism at Everdeen works to further enhance the elite nature of the school, creating smaller elite social circles within an already elite institution. Elitism grows and creates divides within the student body by including some and excluding others. Furthermore, it continues to allow students to develop their cultural and social capital through experiences and increased social connectivity. Sports teams create networks among students and alumni that provide students with access to a more robust social life at school and a more interconnected network after graduation. Although sports are required for all students, those who are more talented and take it more seriously are privy to a more elite social circle and experience.
In one of the student interviews, a 16-year-old describes the ways that her social life is defined by her sports teams by saying, “All of my friends have always been athletes.” For this student, it is not just about participating in sports but also being a self-identified “athlete” that distinguishes her and her friends from other students at their school. Although all students participate in sports, not all students identify with the label of being an athlete. She continues by saying, “it tends to be kids who do sports are more civilized with other kids who do sports.” It’s clear through her experiences and her interviews that her time as a member of the crew team has shaped her social circles and allowed her access to a certain elite status at Everdeen. Furthermore, her social circles are defined by students who are athletes, showing that sports and athletics are dominant factors in Everdeen’s social scene.
Another student who was interviewed discussed his relationship with sports at Everdeen. When asked to describe himself to the interviewer, he immediately discussed his role on the school’s football team and said, “[I’m] A bit of a sport—sportsman. Apart from that, nothing really.” When he was asked if he did any other extracurricular activities, he said, “I don’t really do anything else, like, I can’t do instruments or anything like that.” Like the first student I discussed, this student also feels that playing sports and being an athlete are key parts of his identity and place in the school community. It is clear through these quotations that being an athlete is one of the sole ways that he identifies himself, with little else to talk about. This sheds light on the priorities of students, but more specifically, athletes at Everdeen, as it can serve as a somewhat limiting factor of students’ identities.
Being a part of a sports team as a form of social capital is also a pattern I’ve noticed during my time at Colby. Like Everdeen, Colby is a highly elite institution where sports play a key role in the experience. Although Colby does not require sports, they are essential to the social scene because about one-third of Colby students are athletes. The mere amount of student-athletes at Colby creates a social culture that is dominated by student athletes. For most athletes at Colby, their team is who they spend most of their time with and, therefore, make up their primary social circle. Upon arriving at Colby as a non-athlete, I immediately felt as though I was behind socially due to not being on a sports team and not having an immediate social circle.
At both Colby and Everdeen, being a student-athlete grants students status and access to a social scene that boosts them above the rest of the student body. This allows students who hold this position to gain social capital in a schooling setting, which often sets them up for social capital that transcends schooling.
The social capital that is seen among athletes can also be converted into other kinds of capital, such as economic capital. Although the Everdeen School does not provide financial aid to students, they do have a scholarship for “excellence” that encompasses athletics. This once again clarifies the priorities of the institution and allows students who hold the identity of “athlete” to advance and gain access to elite education while other students are not afforded the same opportunities. Overall, at elite schools, especially Colby College and Everdeen, being an athlete plays a key role in gaining social capital and status as well as economic capital.
