Today, globalization is occurring at a rapid pace in various areas such as politics, economy, society and culture. In order to actively respond to the changes of a globalized world and lead the world in to the future, students need to cultivate the qu...
Today, globalization is occurring at a rapid pace in various areas such as politics, economy, society and culture. In order to actively respond to the changes of a globalized world and lead the world in to the future, students need to cultivate the qualification for global citizens. And, the qualifications can be cultivated through education, thus the necessity of Global Education is increasingly being emphasized. This study specified elements of the qualifications for global citizens required to acquire in the global age and examined how well middle school students were qualified as global citizens.
This study assessed 368 male and female middle school students in Icheon city, Gyeonggi province to analyze the students' qualifications for global citizens. Frequency analysis, descriptive statistics, t-test, one-way ANOVA, and two-way ANOVA were performed on the collected data using the SPSS program. The elements of the qualifications for the global citizens were divided into four sectors: international thinking(thought or analysis of international matters, consciousness to participate in international matters and the ability to handle information on international issues); international understanding(global perspective and insight, understanding of multi-cultures, understanding of international matters); values and attitudes(humanity, open-minded attitudes, reasonable attitudes, and the values of the importance of cultural exchange); and social relationship(social ability to resolve intentional problems). Then, the middle school students' qualifications for global citizens were measured and the results were analyzed.
According to the analysis of the results, the median score of the students' qualifications for global citizens was 2.97, a little below the average level. Of the four elements of qualifications for the global citizen, the sector of values and attitudes scored the highest and the sector of international thinking the lowest. As for the students' qualifications for global citizens by socio-demographic variable, the students had higher level qualifications as their grade was higher, as they received better academic results, and when they had experience of going abroad. The analysis of whether the students showed any difference in their qualifications for global citizens according to socio-demographic variables found that they displayed little difference according to their gender. However, according to their grade and academic results, they showed difference in their qualifications for global citizens. In addition, whether students had experience of going overseas also caused difference in students' qualifications for global citizens.
Educational efforts are required to improve middle school students' qualifications for global citizens which are a little lower than the average. In order to conduct a more effective Global Education in the sociology curriculum, the following should be noted. First, the goal and content of the education of global citizenship should be reflected in actual classes. Second, textbook should cover a variety of things without being biased toward certain content in order to help students improve the functional aspects which the students lacked in the research. Third, various and abundant teaching and learning materials should be produced. Fourth, various teaching-learning methods should be created to trigger students' interest and attention. Fifth, Global Education should be improved by increasing opportunities for teachers to get training on Global Education.
Changes caused by globalization are already affecting a huge part of our life.
Therefore, in order to produce citizens who are needed in the era of globalization the Global Education should be further emphasized.