Building and implementing a global citizenship course for undergraduate honors students

This pilot study investigates the development and delivery of a 112-hour Dutch undergraduate honors course for global citizenship education, called Society 2.0. The theory-based curriculum guidelines Global Justice Citizenship Education (GJCE) were used to build the course by a development team consisting of two teachers, two honors students, and one researcher. The course was delivered twice. Content analysis of development documents and teacher interviews were conducted to answer three questions: What was the added value of course development with a team including teachers, students, and researcher? How did the model shape a. the formal and b. the operationalized curriculum? and in what way are the honors pedagogies ‘freedom’, ‘challenge’ and ‘community’ shaped in the course? Results indicate that the open atmosphere and equality in the development team positively influenced the atmosphere in class. The curriculum guidelines in the moral and social domains as well as experiential learning and honors pedagogies were applied in the course. Guidelines in the knowledge domain seemed the most difficult to realize, especially gaining insights in root causes of injustice. Results are discussed in light of their potential benefits to curriculum design and teaching for critical global citizenship in undergraduate honors programs.