International Symposium on
Global Citizenship Education

More details on the next symposium will be announced on our homepage.

 
1st International Symposium on Global Citizenship Education

Restoring Learning to Daily Living: Global Citizenship and John Dewey

October 22, 2022 | Soka University, Tokyo, Japan
About International Symposium on Global Citizenship Education
In recent years, the idea of global citizenship has become an area of interest as the world increasingly faces daunting challenges and disparities that require collaborative efforts to resolve. The United Nations has also marked global citizenship as an essential element in achieving “Quality Education” by 2030 under the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), indicating the significance of promoting global citizenship within the field of education. Yet, important questions remain unanswered: What is global citizenship? How should it be promoted within educational and societal contexts? These questions have sparked ongoing discussions, highlighting the need to examine global citizenship from diverse perspectives. This International Symposium on Global Citizenship Education will be held every four years, bringing together researchers and scholars to discuss the significance, meaning, and modalities of global citizenship from a variety of angles to explore ways in which it can be effectively reflected within education and society at large.

The year 2022 will mark the 15th anniversary of the opening of the Center for Dewey Studies at Soka University. Commemorating this milestone, the first symposium will focus on exploring the intersections between global citizenship and the educational philosophy of a seminal thinker in the development of modern progressive education, John Dewey, whose works have more recently been revisited within the context of global citizenship education (e.g., Crocker, 2008; Garrison et al., 2014; Hansen, 2009; Hansen et al., 2009; Hickman, 2007, Waks, 2009). Soka University Founder, Daisaku Ikeda, has expressed in a dialogue with renowned Dewey scholars, Jim Garrison and Larry Hickman, that the progenitor of value-creating (soka) pedagogy, Tsunesaburo Makiguchi, was inspired by “Dewey’s philosophy of placing living at the heart of education,” which linked learning with daily living. Global citizenship is not an abstract concept. Rather, its true value lies in how it is actualized within our daily behaviors and interactions with others as we strive to create a peaceful and sustainable world in which we can live together, all realizing our fullest potential. Within the context of global citizenship education, it therefore becomes essential to explore how learners can be best inspired to embody characteristics associated with global citizenship within daily living.

This inaugural symposium will provide an opportunity for both established and emerging researchers and scholars from around the world to further explore and discuss the importance of connecting learning with daily living by drawing from the educational philosophy and practices of John Dewey as well as research and practices within the field of global citizenship education and other relevant fields.