How children living in poor informal settlements in the Greater Accra Region, Ghana, perceive global citizenship

Intergroup empathy

Hull and Stornaiuolo (2014) carried out a three-year study to consider the display traits of students (described as cosmopolitan citizens) from the United States and India. The project examined how young people from two worlds that are seemingly disparate achieve mutual understanding. Both sets of students assumed that they had empathized with the other and had an understanding of the stories that were shared through films. However, Hull and Stornaiuolo (2014) concluded that the empathy displayed on both sides was superficial. Students thought that they were able to put themselves in the others’ shoes. Although they found similarities between their situations, they stayed rooted in themselves, making it hard to see beyond their own experiences. As a consequence, both sets of students felt unheard, even after sharing their stories. Both groups believed that they had not been understood and that there was a lack of empathy towards what was being conveyed. This finding accords with Mackenzie and Leach Scully (2007) who say that it is not possible to put yourself in someone else’s shoes if they are from a very different environment. We cannot try to imagine being someone else from the inside. It may be possible to imagine being in different situations and recognize that others exist in those conditions. But this is limited to imagination as engagement with the perceptions and experiences of others is not possible.

Edge and Khamsi (2012) report the impacts and benefits for students involved in an international school partnership programme. The programme connects UK schools with schools in 13 sub-Saharan African countries. The countries involved in the programme are Cameroon, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe (British Council, 2011). Edge and Khamsi (2012) surveyed a random sample of 900 of the students involved in the programme. Their findings suggest that the international school partnership programme helps students from different countries around the world to develop cultural awareness and empathy.

Responsibility to act and social justice

Niens and Reilly (2012) examined GCE in a post-conflict context with students in Northern Ireland. They found that students had a strong inclination to act appropriately in matters of social justice. They also had an awareness of interdependence. However, there was ‘little evidence that participants, whether primary or post-primary, appreciated global interdependence in relation to themes other than the environment and … the economy’ (Niens and Reilly, 2012: 108).

Another piece of research from Africa by Quaynor (2015) decribes a case study of 33 school students (between the ages of 15 and 31) living in post-conflict Monrovia, Liberia. Semi-structured interviews were carried out with these students who believed they were global citizens living in poverty, without freedom of speech, and because of this, felt discriminated against. The issue of global poverty and inequality is also one of the major concerns expressed by young people in the Global North when studying global citizenship (Hicks and Holden, 2007; Minty, 2010; Holden and Minty, 2011).

Valuing diversity

Evidence was found in Northern Ireland that students had awareness of other cultures. They also showed empathy and curiosity. There was also some stereotyping about the Global South, which mostly went unchallenged (Niens and Reilly, 2012).

Ross and Davies (2018: 29) stated that young people in Europe have been interested in extending learning about human rights to ‘include areas such as the rights of those with lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender sexual identities, and … the rights of migrants and refugees’. Young people largely accepted refugees from other countries and cultures and were critical of the prejudiced attitudes they attributed to older people.

Sustainability

The environment, climate change and sustainability are all high priorities for many students around the world. This is demonstrated in student-led protests around the world against climate change, initially led by Swedish student Greta Thunberg (Nevett, 2019). There is also evidence that concerns around the environment feature highly in research undertaken with students in the UK and Poland (Minty, 2010, cited in Ross and Davies, 2018), and in Latin America where students are taught that their responsibility as a citizen is to change attitudes to the environment (Sant and González Valencia, 2018).

Normative environment

Reysen and Katzarska-Miller (2013) say that a student’s normative environment is a predictor of whether or not they will self-identify as a global citizen. Shultz (2018: 253) questions this, asking whether GCE ‘produces in some cases, a neoliberal citizen attempting to live without connection to place or people or system’ if it works to expand privilege for elite citizens. However, Shultz (2018) does use the analogy of a classroom being a fractal of the world and if teachers are encouraging an environment in which the traits of global citizens are seen positively, then students will learn to operate in a collaborative, diverse and accepting society. If this is true, then the normative environment would be a definitive factor in whether students feel that they are global citizens. Lee et al. (2017) also found that a student’s normative environment was significantly, positively correlated with self-identification as a global citizen. Howard et al. (2018: 507), in a study of wealthy Ghanaian students, suggest that ‘staying in Africa leads to a limited future’ and global citizenship exists ‘outside Ghana’. The students and teachers refer to Africa’s brain drain. The school in this study offers courses in several European languages and classes are taught in English, reinforcing the message of being ‘depersonalized and detached’ from their country (Howard et al., 2018: 508) and supporting arguments around postcolonial understandings of global citizenship education (Abdi et al., 2015; Torres, 2017; Arnot et al., 2018).

Jooste and Heleta (2017) discuss the development of a global competence, rather than global citizenship, as a more appropriate way of assisting graduates from the Global South to overcome injustices and inequalities. There is a need in higher education in the Global South, they argue, for ‘socially responsible, ethical and globally competent graduates’ (Jooste and Heleta, 2017: 40) as this will support countries’ growth and future development.

Participants and procedure

The children participating in this study came from three schools located in poor informal settlements in the Greater Accra Region, Ghana. The schools were known to one of the researchers and therefore convenience sampling was used to select the three schools – that is, they were chosen owing to their convenient accessibility. All children in classes 5 and 6 in each of the three schools who took part in the research were given the opportunity not to participate.

Potential bias concerning this convenience sampling technique is that the sample of schools may not be representative of the entire population. However, we have no reason to believe that the children or schools that took part in this research were different to others in the neighbourhood. Systematic bias could be one criticism of the sampling technique. Therefore, there are limits around generalization and inference about the entire population. This research used a combination of quantitative and qualitative data to help limit the potential for biased interpretations. Using the two approaches provides a more complete understanding of the research questions as well as explaining the research findings more comprehensively. Merging the two forms of data and determining how to interpret the results that diverge are regarded as two of the main advantages of mixed methods research (Creswell, 2002; Driscoll et al., 2007).

Of the 141 children, 54.6 per cent were girls with a mean age of 11 years (standard deviation 1.30 years). Regarding possessions, 89 per cent of the families owned a mobile phone, about half of their homes had a stone floor and 32 per cent had a toilet inside the premises. Most families accessed drinking water via a public well or spring. The great majority of the fathers had an income (95 per cent) and around two-thirds of the mothers were also in work. Regarding the fathers’ employment, the largest category was ‘farmer or fisherman’, followed by ‘trader’ and ‘service worker’. Half of the mothers were ‘cleaners’ or ‘shop workers’. The three most common languages spoken among participants were English (23.4 per cent), Twi (22.7 per cent) and Fante (18.4 per cent). Many other regional languages were spoken, sometimes by only one participant in the sample of 141 children. Of those surveyed, 71.6 per cent answered that they had never visited another country, while 81.6 per cent said that someone in their family (not necessarily an immediate relative) had visited another country.

Children in groups of 20–30 in classes 5 and 6 completed the questionnaire in their own school; for all participants this activity took place in the morning. The principal investigator from the UK was present at all times in each school that participated in order to oversee the data collection. The questionnaire, semi-structured interviews and global citizen activities with each class lasted around 2.5–3 hours. All the children and their parents were informed via their schools of the purpose of the study, that it was voluntary and that the results of the questionnaire would be strictly confidential and used for research purposes only.

Children completing the questionnaires were younger than those participating in the previous research, and many spoke English as an additional language to their mother tongue. To aid the children’s comprehension of the questions, prior to students choosing whether they agreed with a statement, they were shown a series of pictures and given information describing what a global citizen is generally considered to be in relation to the individual questions. This school-based material was taken from Oxfam’s (2015a, 2015b) guide for schools on what makes a global citizen. The guide is ‘practical and reflective’ (Oxfam, 2015b: 4) to help support awareness and learning of global citizenship in the classroom. It provides knowledge, skills and values which learners need ‘in order to thrive as global citizens’ (Oxfam, 2015b: 5) and materials to help teach global citizenship in the areas of globalization and interdependence, social justice and equity, identity and diversity, sustainable development and peace and conflict. Oxfam (2015b: 4) state that the attributes of a global citizen are ‘someone who has a sense of being a world citizen, understands the importance of diversity and amongst other attributes has a commitment to social justice’. The guide offers a starting point to facilitate discussion rather than giving opinions that need to be taught.

Global citizenship survey measures and semi-structured interviews

This section reports the semi-structured interviews carried out with the children and sets out the questions used in each category of the survey. The interviews were undertaken as a qualitative aspect of the research in order to add a Ghanaian context and illustrate local attitudes and understanding around global citzenship.

The survey devised by Reysen and Katzarska-Miller (2013) contains 20 statements related to global citizenship. These items were answered on a five-point Likert scale showing agreement from 0 = strongly disagree to 4 = strongly agree, including a middle option of 2 = unsure.

To assess the antecedents and traits of global citizenship, latent measures from Reysen and Katzarska-Miller (2013) were adopted in order to group survey questions into factor scores.

• Normative environment: Two items – ‘If I called myself a global citizen most people who are close to me would think that was a good thing’, ‘I think that most people who are close to me think that being a global citizen is a good thing’ – were combined to assess the cultural patterns and values of cultural citizenship through people and settings. When discussing global citizenship with the children, using the Oxfam (2015a, 2015b) resources, they all agreed that it was a good idea and would help the world to be more interconnected, reduce wars and create more equitable societies.

• Global awareness: Four items – ‘I know that my actions in my local environment may affect people in other countries’, ‘I try to find out about current issues around the world’, ‘I understand how various cultures of this world interact socially’, ‘I believe that I am connected to people in other countries, and my actions can affect them’ – were combined to form a global awareness index. One of the highest levels of uncertainty revealed by the children was around how their actions were connected to others. The children did not have any knowledge of issues such as climate change, extreme weather conditions, rising sea levels or polar ice caps melting. Even though Africa Climate Week had been taking place in Accra, approximately 35 km from the schools, during the research period, none of the children interviewed was aware that the event was taking place, but all expressed an interest in finding out more.

• Global citizenship identification: Two items – ‘I think I am similar to other global citizens’, ‘I would say that I am a global citizen’– were combined to assess global citizenship identification. When asked, the overwhelming majority (96 per cent) of the Ghanaian children thought that they were ‘a global citizen, the same as children from other countries’. They thought that this was important, as by working together with other countries they could help Ghana.

• Intergroup empathy: Two items – ‘I am able to empathize with people from other countries’, ‘It is easy for me to put myself in someone else’s shoes regardless of what country they are from’ – were combined to assess concern and connection for others outside of one’s own group. When asked, these two questions prompted discussion among the children as, although they agreed that they were able to empathize, they tried to delve deeper into why it was so difficult to do so. One student commented that it was ‘hard to understand people from other countries because you don’t know how they are feeling’. Thoughts on this topic mainly concerned the children themselves, even though the statements were thinking about other people. When asked to try and imagine how the researcher might feel about their first time in Ghana and in Africa, one student responded that they thought they would feel ‘proud, because you are able to travel’. The response illustrates that generally the children’s ability to empathize was mostly confined to feelings of difference, rather than trying to think of any similar feelings they might have.

• Valuing diversity: Two items – ‘I am interested in learning about the many cultures that have existed in this world’, ‘I would like to join groups that help me to get to know people from different countries’ – were combined to assess valuing diversity. The children responded egocentrically in the interviews around questions to do with getting to know people from other cultures, with a common theme of ‘If I know your country and its people, I will be able to visit your country.’ The children saw the benefits of learning about other cultures as being advantageous in terms of them travelling to other countries. When asked, none of the children had thought about understanding different cultures regarding visitors to Ghana or how it could help them to embrace diversity, reduce stereotypes or help to overcome prejudice.

• Social justice: Two items – ‘Those countries that are rich should help people in countries who are less rich’, ‘Basic services such as health care, clean water, food, and legal assistance should be available to everyone, regardless of what country they live in’ – were combined to assess the equitable and fair treatment for all and the upholding of human rights. When the children were asked, a common response was ‘if you have the money’ you should ‘help poor people’. In the survey no one disagreed with the ‘basic services’ question, all believing passionately that ‘basic services should be available to everyone in the world’.

• Environmental sustainability: Two items – ‘Natural resources should be used primarily to provide for basic needs rather than material wealth’, ‘People have a responsibility to conserve natural resources to make sure we don’t spoil our environment’ – were combined to assess the protection of the environment and a belief around the interconnectedness of humans and nature. Local mining as well as air pollution were quoted by the children as causes of environmental issues, but they could not explain how these would concern other parts of the world.

• Intergroup helping: Two items – ‘If I could I would help others who are in need no matter where they are from’, ‘If I could, I would spend my life helping others no matter what country they are from’ – were combined to assess helping others outside of one’s own group. Over 90 per cent of the children agreed or strongly agreed with both statements relating to intergroup helping. The semi-structured interviews also reiterated this result, demonstrating that children were passionate about this area of global citizenship.

• Responsibility to act: Two items – ‘It is important to be actively involved in global issues’, ‘It is my duty to understand and respect cultural differences across the globe the best I can’ – were combined to assess felt responsibility to act. When questioned about active involvement in global issues, most children agreed that they would want to attend a local protest, especially concerning an issue such as mining or traffic pollution. However, students agreed that they had not come into contact with any such activity. They did not appear to have an understanding of any actions that they could take as advocates for issues that they were concerned about, nor could any student think of any activities that they could plan independently in this regard.

Validity and reliability

In order to secure the internal validity of the instruments, triangulation through qualitative analysis was employed through semi-structured interviews. For external validity, the results obtained in this study were found to be similar to those in other studies, supporting a degree of generalizability. Analysis of the latent structure shows consistent reliability of the global citizenship construct compared to other studies (Reysen and Katzarska-Miller, 2013; Lee et al., 2017). All item loadings on each of the factors are also salient and stable, having values greater than 0.5 (Guadagnoli and Velicer, 1988; Brown, 2006). These results also provide evidence that the model of global citizenship is in some ways transferable, cross culturally.