Module 5: Multicultural and Global Literacy

Multicultural Literacy

Multicultural literacy consists of the skills and ability to identify the creators of knowledge and their
interests (Banks, 1996) to reveal the assumptions of knowledge, to view knowledge from diverse ethnic
and cultural perspective, and to use knowledge to guide action’ that will create a humane and just world
(Boutte, 2008).

Multicultural literacy then, brings attention to diversity, equity and social justice to foster cultural
awareness by addressing difficult issues like discrimination and oppression towards other ethnicities
(Boutte, 2008).

Accordingly, education for multicultural literacy should help students to develop the 21st century skills and
attitudes that are needed to become active citizens who will work toward achieving ‘social justice within
communities. Because of the growing racial, language and ethnic diversity in the country, multicultural
literacy needs to be transformed in substantial ways to prepare students to function effectively in the 21st
Century (Boutte).

Boutte (2008) reiterated that making small changes within the classrooms can create big changes globally.
As diversity grows, there is a need for the emergence of multicultural education that is more
representative of the students in today’s classrooms. Banks (2003) asserted that teaching students to be
advocates of multiculturalism is also a matter of sending a message of empathy and tolerance in schools
to develop a deeper understanding of others and appreciation of different cultures. Developing these
attitudes and skills requires basic knowledge prior to teaching students how to question assumptions
about cultural Knowledge and how to critique and critically think about these important cultural issues,
which is what essentially makes multicultural literacy a 21st Century literacy (Banks, 2003).

Global Literacy

Global literacy aims to address issues of globalization, racism, diversity and social justice (Guo, 2014). It
requires awareness and action, consistent with a broad understanding of humanity, the planet, and the
impact of a human decision on both. It also aims to empower students with knowledge and take action
to make a positive impact in the world and their local community (Guo, 2014).

According to the Ontario Ministry of Education (2015), a global} citizen should possess the following
characteristics:
1. respect for humans regardless of race, gender, religion or political perspectives;
2. respect for diversity and various perspectives;
3. promote sustainable patterns of living, consumption, and production; and
4. appreciate the natural world and demonstrate respect on the rights of all living things.

Interconnecting multicultural and global literacy. Every classroom contains students of different races,
religions and cultural groups. Guo (2014): averred that students embrace diverse behaviors, cultural
values, patterns of practice, and communication, yet they all share one commonality, which is their
educational opportunity.
Therefore, teachers should teach their students that other cultures exist and that these deserve to be
acknowledged and respected. Integrating a variety of cultural context into lessons and activities teaches
students to view the world from many angles, creates respect for diversity and enables students to learn
exciting information. As classrooms become increasingly more diverse, it is important for educators to
analyze and address diversity issues and integrate multiculturalism information into the classroom
curriculum (Guo, 2014).

Global Competence

The desire to participate in interconnected, complex and diverse societies has become a pressing need.
Recognizing the roles of schools in preparing the youth to participate in the world, the OECD's Program
for International Student Assessment (PISA) developed a framework to explain, foster and assess students’
global competence. This design serves as a tool for policymakers, leaders and teachers in fostering global
competence among students worldwide.

Global competence is a multidimensional capacity. Therefore, globally competent individuals can analyze
and rationalize local, global and intercultural issues, understand and appreciate different perspectives and
worldviews, interact successfully and respectfully with others, and take responsible action toward
sustainability and collective well-being (OECD publication).

Global competence refers to skills, values and behaviors that prepare young people to thrive in a diverse,
interconnected and rapidly changing world. It is the ability to become engaged citizens and collaborative
problem solvers who are ready for the workforce.

Promoting global competence in schools. Schools play a crucial role in helping young people to develop
global competence. They can provide’ opportunities to critically examine global developments that are
significant to both the world and to their own lives. They can teach students how to critically, effectively
and responsibly use digital information and social media platforms.

Schools can encourage intercultural sensitivity and respect by allowing students to engage in experiences
that foster an appreciation for diverse peoples, languages and cultures (Bennett, 1993; Sinicrope, Norris
and Watanabe, 2007). Schools are also positioned to enhance students’ ability to understand their place
in the community and the world and improve such ability to make judgments and take action (Hanvey,
1975 in PISA, 2018).

The Need for Global Competence

The following are the reasons why global competence is necessary.

1. To live harmoniously in multicultural communities. Education for global competence can promote
cultural awareness and purposeful interactions in increasingly diverse societies (Brubacker and
Laitin, 1998; Kymlicka, 1995; Sen, 2007). People with diverse cultures are able to live peacefully,
respect differences, find common solutions, resolve conflicts and learn to live together as global
citizens (Delors, et. al., 1996; UNESCO, 2014b). Thus, education can teach students the need to
address cultural biases and stereotypes.

2. To thrive in a changing labor market. Education for global competence can boost employability
through effective communication and appropriate behavior within diverse teams using
technology in accessing and connecting to the world (British Council, 2013).
 3. To use media platforms effectively and responsibly. Radical transformations in digital technologies
have shaped young people's outlook on the world, their interaction with others and their
perception of themselves. Online networks, social media - and interactive technologies give rise
to new concepts of learning, wherein young people exercise to take their freedom on what and
how they learn (Zuckerman, 2014).

4. To support the sustainable development goals. Education for global competence can help form
new generations who care about global issues and engage in social, political, economic and
environmental discussions.

Dimensions of Global Competence: Implications to Education

Education for global competence is founded on the ideas of different models of global education, such as
intercultural education, global citizenship education and education for democratic citizenship (UNESCO,
2014a; Council of Europe, 2016a).

Despite differences in focus and scope, these models share a common goal of promoting students’
understanding of the world and empower them to express their views and participate in the society. PISA
proposes a new perspective on the definition and assessment of global competence that will help policy
makers and school leaders create learning resources and curricula that integrate global competence as a
multifaceted cognitive, socio-emotional and civic learning goal (Boix Mansilla, 2016).

This definition outlines four dimensions of global competence that people need to apply in their everyday
life just like students from different cultural backgrounds are working together on school projects.

Dimension 1: Examine issues of local, global and cultural significance

This dimension refers to globally competent people's practices of effectively utilizing knowledge about
the world and critical reasoning in forming their own opinion about a global issue. People, who acquire a
mature level of development in this dimension, use higher-order thinking skills, such as selecting and
weighing appropriate evidence to support arguments about global developments. Most likely, globally
competent students can draw on and combine the disciplinary knowledge and thinking styles learned in
schools to ask questions, analyze data and propositions, explain phenomena, and develop a position
concerning a local, global or cultural issue. Hence, globally competent people effectively use and create
both traditional and digital media (Boix Mansilla and Jackson, 2011).

Dimension 2: Understand and appreciate the perspectives and world views of others

This dimension highlights that globally competent people are willing and capable of considering other
people’s perspectives and behaviors from multiple viewpoints to examine their own assumptions. This in
turn, implies a profound respect for and interest in others with their concept of reality and emotions.
Individuals with this competence also consider and appreciate the connections that enable them to bridge
in differences and create common ground. They retain their cultural identity while becoming aware of the
cultural values and beliefs of people around them (Fennes and Hapgood, 1997).

Dimension 3: Engage in open, appropriate and effective interactions across cultures

This dimension describes what globally competent individuals can do when they interact with people from
different cultures. They understand the cultural norms, interactive styles and degrees of formality of
intercultural contexts, and they can flexibly adapt their behavior and communication manner through
respectful dialog even with marginalized groups. Therefore, it emphasizes individuals’ capacity to interact
with others across differences in ways that are open, appropriate and effective (Barrett, et. al., 2014).

Dimension 4: Take action for collective well-being and sustainable development

This dimension focuses on young people’s role as active and responsible members of society and refers
to individual’s readiness to respond to a given local, global or intercultural issue or situation. It recognizes
that young people have multiple realms of influence ranging from personal and local to digital and global.
Globally competent people create opportunities to get engaged to improve living conditions in, their
communities and build a just, peaceful, inclusive and an environmentally sustainable world.

The assessment strategy for global competence

The PISA 2018 assessment of global competence contributes development, while considering challenges
and limitations. It has two components: 1) a cognitive test exclusively focused on the construct of “global
understanding”; and 2) a set of questionnaire items collecting self-reported information on students’
awareness on global issues and cultures, skills (both cognitive and social) and attitudes, as well as
information from schools and teachers on activities that promote global competence (OECD, 2018).

Curriculum for global competence: Knowledge, skills, attitudes and values

Schools can provide opportunities for students to explore complex global issues that they encounter
through media and their own experiences. The curriculum should focus on four knowledge domains:

1. culture and intercultural relations;

2. socio-economic development and interdependence;
3. environmental sustainability; and
4. global institutions, conflicts and human rights.

Teaching these four domains should stress on differences in perspectives, questioning concepts, and
arguments. Students can acquire knowledge in this domain by reflecting on their own cultural identity
and that of their peers by analyzing common stereotypes toward people in their community or by
analyzing related cases of cultural conflict. Acquiring knowledge in this aspect is important in developing
values, such as peace, respect, nondiscrimination, equality, fairness, acceptance, justice, non-violence and
tolerance (OECD, 2018).

Skills to understand the world and to take action

Global competence builds on specific cognitive, Communication and socio-emotional skills. Effective
education for global competence gives students the opportunity to mobilize and use their knowledge,
attitudes, skills and values together while sharing ideas on global issues in and outside of school or
interacting with people from different cultural backgrounds.

A school community that desires to nurture global competence should focus on clear, controllable and
realizable learning goals. This means engaging all educators to reflect on teaching topics that are globally
significant, the types of skills that foster deeper understanding of the world and facilitate respectful
interactions in multicultural contexts, and the attitudes and values that drive autonomous learning and
inspire responsible action (OECD, 2018).

Knowledge about the world and other cultures

Global competence is supported by the knowledge of global issues that affect lives locally and, around the
globe, as well as intercultural knowledge, or knowledge about the similarities, differences and relations
among cultures. This knowledge helps people to challenge misinformation and stereotypes about other
countries and people, and thus, results in intolerance and oversimplified representations of the world.

This can be done through the following strategies (OECD, 2018):

 Perspective-taking refers to the cognitive and social skills of understanding how other people
think and feel.

 Adaptability refers to the ability to adapt systems thinking and behaviors to the prevailing cultural
environment, or to situations and contexts that can present new demands or challenges.

Openness, respect for diversity and global-mindedness

Globally competent behavior requires an attitude of openness towards people from other cultural
backgrounds, an attitude of respect for cultural differences and.an attitude of global-mindedness. Such
attitudes can be fostered explicitly through participatory and learner-centered teaching, as well as
through a curriculum characterized by fair practices and an accommodating school climate for all students.

Openness toward people from other cultural backgrounds involves sensitivity towards curiosity about and
willingness to engage with other people and other perspectives on the world (Byram, 2008; Council of
Europe, 2016a).

Respect consists of a positive regard for someone based on judgment of intrinsic worth. It assumes the
dignity of all human beings and their -inalienable right to choose their own affiliations, beliefs, opinions
or practices (Council of Europe, 2016Ga).

Global-mindedness is defined as a worldview, in which one sees him/herself connected to the community
and feels a sense of responsibility for its members (Hansen, 2010).

Valuing human dignity and diversity

Valuing human dignity and valuing cultural diversity contribute to global competence because they
constitute ‘critical filters through which individuals process information about other cultures and decide
how to engage with others and the world. Hence, people, who cultivate these values, become more aware
of themselves and their Surroundings and are strongly motivated to fight against exclusion, ignorance,
violence, oppression and war.

Clapham (2006) introduced the four aspects of valuing equality of core rights and dignity. To wit:
1. the prohibition of all types of inhuman treatment, humiliation or degradation by one person over
another;
 2. the assurance of the possibility for individual choice and the conditions for each individual's self-
fulfillment, autonomy or self-realization;
3. the recognition that protection of group identity and culture may be essential for that of personal
dignity; and
4. the creation of necessary conditions to have the essential needs satisfied.

Global understanding

Understanding is the ability to use knowledge to find meaning and connection between different pieces
of information and perspectives.

The framework distinguishes four interrelated cognitive processes at globally competent students need
to use to understand fully global or intercultural issues and situations (OECD, 2018).

1. The capacity to evaluate information, formulate arguments and explain complex situations and
problems by using and connecting evidence, identifying biases and gaps in information and
managing conflicting arguments

2. The capacity to analyze multiple perspectives and worldviews, positioning and connecting their
own and others’ perspectives on the world

3. The capacity to understand differences in communication, recognizing the importance of socially

appropriate communication and adapting it to the demands of diverse cultural contexts :

4. The capacity to evaluate actions and consequences by identifying and comparing different courses
of action and weighing actions on the basis of consequences

Thus, globally competent students should be able to perform a wide variety of tasks utilizing different
cognitive processes, such as: reasoning with evidence about an issue or situation of local, global and
intercultural significance; searching effectively for useful sources of information; evaluating information
on the basis of its relevance and reliability; synthesizing information to describe the main ideas in an
argumentative text or the salient passages of a conversation; and combining their background knowledge,
new information and critical reasoning to build multi-causal explanations of global or intercultural issues
(OECD, 2018).

Integrating Global and Intercultural Issues in the Curriculum

For global education to translate abstraction into action, there is a need to integrate global issues and
topics into existing subjects (Klein, 2013; UNESCO, 2014). In practice, content knowledge related to global
competence is integrated in the curriculum and taught in specific courses. Therefore, students can
understand those issues across ages, starting in early childhood when presenting them in developmentally
appropriate ways (Boix Mansilla and Jackson, 2011; UNESCO, 2015)

Therefore, Gaudelli (2006) affirmed that teachers must have clear ideas on global and intercultural issues
that students may reflect on. They also need to collaboratively research topics and carefully design the
curriculum while giving students multiple opportunities to learn those issues. Teachers may also engage
in professional learning communities and facilitate peer learning.
More so, teaching about minority cultures in different subject areas entails accurate content information
about ethnically and racially diverse groups and experiences. Curricula should promote, the integration of
knowledge of other people, places and perspectives in the classroom throughout the year (UNESCO,
2014a), rather than using a “tourist approach’, or giving students a superficial glimpse of life in different
countries now and then.

Textbooks and other instructional materials can also distort cultural and ethnic differences (Gay, 2015).
Teachers and their students should critically examine textbooks and other teaching resources and
supplement information when necessary.

Connecting global and intercultural topics to the reality, contexts and needs of the learning group is an
effective methodological approach to make them relevant to adolescents (North-South Centre of the
Council of Europe, 2012). People learn better and become more engaged when they get connected with
the content and when they see its relevance to their lives and their immediate environment (Suarez-
Orozco and Todorova, 2008).

Pedagogies for promoting global competence. Various student-centered pedagogies can help students
develop critical thinking along global issues, respectful communication, conflict management skills,
perspective taking and adaptability.

Group-based cooperative project work can improve reasoning and collaborative skills. It involves topic or
theme-based tasks suitable for various levels and ages, in which goals and content are negotiated and
learners can create their own learning materials that they present and evaluate together. Learners,
participating in cooperative tasks, soon would realize that to be efficient, they need to be respectful,
attentive, honest and empathic (Barrett, et. al, 2014).

Class discussion is an interactive approach that encourages proactive listening and responding to ideas
expressed by peers. By exchanging views in the classroom, students learn that there is no single right
answer to a problem, understand the reasons why others hold different views and reflect on the origins
of their own beliefs (Ritchhart, et. al., 2011).

Service learning is another tool that can help students develop multiple global skills through real-world
experience. This requires learners to participate in organized activities that are based on what has been
learned in the classroom and that benefit their communities. After the activities, learners reflect critically
on their service experience to gain further understanding: of course content, and enhance their sense of
role in society with regard to civic, social, economic and political issues (Bringle and Clayton, 2012).
Through service learning, students not only “serve to learn,” which is applied learning, but also ‘learn to
serve” (Bringle, et. al., 2016).

The Story Circle Approach intends students to practice key intercultural skills, including respect, cultural
self-awareness and empathy (Deardorff, n.d.). The students, in groups of 5-6, take turns sharing a 3-
minute story from their own experience based on specific prompts, such as “Tell us about your first
experience when you encountered: someone who was different from you in some ways.” After all
students in the group have shared their personal stories, students then, share the most memorable point
from each story in a ‘flash back” activity.

Other types of intercultural engagements involve simulations, interviews, role plays and online games.
Attitudes and values integration toward global competence. Allocating teaching time to a specific subject
that deals with human rights issues and non-discrimination is an important ‘initial step in: cultivating
values for global competence. Values and attitudes are partly communicated through the formal
curriculum and also through ways, in which teachers and students interact, how discipline is encouraged
and the types of opinions and behavior that are validated in the classroom. Therefore, recognizing the
school and classroom environments’ influence on developing Students’ values would help teachers
become more aware of the impact of their teaching on students (Gay, 2015).