Ideology and Instruction in Global Education: Case Studies of International and Local Schools in Hong Kong, New York, and Singapore

Global education (GE) is a curriculum approach that aims to expand students’ global awareness and develop skills and values to participate in an interconnected world (Hicks, 2003). As enactors of curriculum, GE teachers are positioned at the center of divergent ideological perspectives that wield powerful implications on curricular intentions, schools’ roles in society, and instructional pedagogy (Apple, 2001). Yet, few studies describe teachers’ understanding of GE and how they mitigate conflicting agendas in their classroom instruction (Zong, Wilson, & Quashiga, 2008). Because of the positioning of GE teachers in this ideological landscape, this qualitative study investigates their conceptions about GE teaching, their actual teaching, and the societal and institutional contexts in which teaching occurs. We focus on the global cities (Sassen, 1996) of Hong Kong, New York, and Singapore, where policies encourage global curriculum innovations, but where schooling is situated within nationalistic, utilitarian societal discourses regarding students’ future global roles. To maximize variability, in these jurisdictions we attend to teachers in local schools operating within national directives and international schools that are often overlooked in GE literature. Employing interpretive and comparative perspectives, we aim to illuminate the ideologies embedded teachers’ conceptions of GE and contextual factors that constrain and promote their instruction.

Funding Source: RGC - General Research Fund (GRF)