The document discusses approaches to global education that engage students in reflecting on ethics and global issues. It presents two approaches: Philosophy for Children, which uses communities of inquiry to emphasize morality and rationality; and Open Spaces for Dialogue and Enquiry, which emphasizes ethics, difference, and developing critical literacy towards difference. The document advocates for education that fosters critical thinking, open-mindedness, understanding of global issues and power relationships, and action for positive change.

1. Education for an Imperfect World:
Engaging Students in the Ethics of
Global Issues
Andrea Bullivant
Liverpool World Centre/Liverpool Hope University

2. Liverpool World Centre
To empower people in Merseyside to work for
global and social justice in their local and global
community.
Liverpool Hope University
Wider Perspectives in Education
Students are encouraged to....reflect on
their beliefs, the purpose of education
and the needs of children growing up in
a global context….
TEESNet (Teacher Education for Equity and Sustainability)
A unique collaboration of HE, NGO’s schools and other education
bodies, to promote Education for Sustainable Development/Global
Citizenship

3. Key idea:
‘Global learning’ as a pedagogical approach for engaging
students
Two examples of global learning approaches:
 Philosophy for Children (Communities of Enquiry)
 Open Spaces for Dialogue and Enquiry (OSDE)

4. Global learning
should be seen as a pedagogical approach that is
relevant and appropriate to the construction and
application of knowledge within a subject, fit for the
21st century, that
……………….recognises the relevance of global
processes, the value of differing voices and
perspectives, and above all that includes critical
reflection.
Bourn D 2012 Global Learning and Subject Knowledge

5. And……..
……an approach that moves from reproducing bodies of
knowledge to one that recognises learners’
engagement with this knowledge and their different
starting points, influenced by a range of external
factors.
(including) learners’ own sense of place and identity in
the world
Bourn D 2014 The Theory and Practice of Global Learning

6.  Fairness and equality
 Sustainable living
 Diversity, identity and belonging
 Rights and responsibilities
 Peace and conflict
Starting points……..

8. How might we think beyond an education that merely
seeks to inculcate knowledge toward just education that
provokes insight into the conditions of freedom, justice
and responsibility themselves?
Todd S 2009

9. Philosophy for Children

10. What kind of ethical issues?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmbcrnXD1DM
Our stimulus

11. What kind of ethical issues?
 Global solidarity versus global competition
 Reconciling local and global identities and interests
 Responsibility for or responsibility towards
 ‘Soft’ versus ‘critical’ global citizenship education
Andreotti, V (2006)

12. Open Spaces for Dialogue and Enquiry (OSDE)
 P4C is based on a tradition that emphasises morality and rationality
(i.e. analytic philosophy), the basic principle is that if people reason
better, they will see the same thing (a universal morality/truth/way of
being/etc.).
 The philosophical tradition that is the basis of
OSDE…..emphasises ethics and difference, the basic principle
is that there will always be difference, that difference and
conflict are extremely important for change/learning and that
the better we reason, the more we understand that there are no
universal parameters ……... In practical terms, OSDE facilitation
has the specific objective of developing critical literacy and an
ethical relation to difference,

14.  Andreotti V 2006
 Bourn D 2012 Global Learning and Subject Knowledge
 Bourn D 2014 The Theory and Practice of Global
Learning


15.  P4C is based on a tradition that emphasises morality and
rationality (i.e. analytic philosophy), the basic principle is that if
people reason better, they will see the same thing (a universal
morality/truth/way of being/etc.).
 The philosophical tradition that is the basis of OSDE
(i.e.continental philosophy) emphasises ethics and difference, the
basic principle is that there will always be difference, that
difference and conflict are extremely important for change/learning
and that the better we reason, the more we understand that there
are no universal parameters as at different periods of time,
different cultures/peoples/individuals will invariably see things in
ways that are based on different assumptions about reality and
being. In practical terms, OSDE facilitation has the specific
objective of developing critical literacy and an ethical relation to
difference,

16. Education that puts learning in a global
context……………fostering:
• critical and creative thinking
• self-awareness and open-mindedness towards difference
• understanding of global issues and power relationships
• optimism and action for a better world.
www.think-global.org.uk

17. ……….content-focused, information-based, and grounded in everyday practice,
providing guidance about behaviours, shifts in habit, ……exemplified by approaches
where problems are explained to people and guidance about solutions provided. (Scott W &
Vare, P Due 2014)

18. Little Red Riding Hood – what questions
might a philosopher ask?
 What does it mean to be wicked?
 Is everyone capable of both good and evil?
 How much freedom should parents give their children?
 Is it always wrong to talk to strangers?
 To what extent should people take responsibility for relatives who are old
or infirm?
 What do our clothes say about the sort of person we are?
 Is it right to kill an aggressor in order to save an innocent victim?