National citizenship as an impediment to global citizenship? The ‘glocal’ approach to global citizenship education in Taiwan and the necessary preconditions

Abstract

The debates about whether national citizenship (NC) and global citizenship (GC) are either mutually contradictory or can be compatible, has been a long-running topic in the scholarship of philosophy. This article uses Taiwan as an example with its complex nationhood to demonstrate how their citizenship curriculum developers have approached this issue and incorporated global citizenship education (GCE) in the latest curriculum. This case study discovers that three preconditions are essential to GC development: (a) the discovery of self-identity, (b) openness to diverse values and (c) social transformation within liberal and democratic constructs. Also, from the qualitative data collected, it can be seen that GC can act as a ‘prism’ reflecting the significance of NC and NC in turn is a ‘reference point’ for students to reflect upon global issues from a local viewpoint. In line with the emerging ‘glocal pedagogies’ and their dialectical nature, GC is not only compatible with NC but also reinforces national awareness. This Taiwanese case hopes to inspire countries facing a similar crisis of nationhood or with self-governing areas pursuing independence to reconsider GC as one of the citizenship curriculum development options.