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This paper exposes the tensions between different agendas and calls for what is loosely called "global citizenship education" by developing a set of sociological conceptual tools useful for engaging with associated educational forms and ideals. It presents the instrumentalist and normative agendas at play within global citizenship education policy, theory and practice. Recent theoretical critiques of more mainstream global citizenship education are considered, encapsulated in calls for a form of "cosmopolitan learning". This learning is associated with the development of epistemic virtues and calls for an epistemological shift in the way knowledge, learning and identities are seen. It is argued that there is much to be gained from this recent body of academic work, but that it must also be accompanied by empirically informed understandings of current school contexts and the hegemonic notions of corporate cosmopolitan capital at play. The position is taken that no matter how global citizenship education is theorised, key theoretical, conceptual and practical questions need to be asked that expose the normative, universalist and instrumentalist agendas at play. (Contains 1 table.)

In recent decades there have been increased calls for UK schools to develop a more European and global orientation in their pedagogy and curriculum, and to equip children and young people with post-national knowledge, skills, and dispositions. This paper examines some key problems in post-national conceptions of citizenship education, in order to develop a research agenda focusing on the contested nature of notions of post-national citizenship (with particular attention to European and global citizenship), and on the way these notions are understood as having competing claims in education. In examining these issues the paper explains the confused governmental agendas and commitments in relation to European and/or global citizenship education, and concludes by considering alternative theories of citizenship, curriculum, and pedagogy that may provide a deeper understanding of the associated issues and tensions. Although the paper relates directly to the UK, some of the debates have a wider significance. (Contains 21 notes.)

This article considers the issue of global education in schools by focusing upon the case of one particular English secondary school and exploring the pedagogic and curricular perspectives of its staff and students. It recognizes the strong normative and holistic dimension to global education and the challenges it faces in, and presents to schools. The sometimes mixed pedagogic and curricular messages of global education are characteristic of other adjectival and interdisciplinary educational forms working within the framework of the National Curriculum (11-16). Whilst raising more questions than it answers, this article goes some way to articulate the debates, tensions and dilemmas being discussed in the field of global education--a field including teachers, schools, non-Governmental organizations and Governmental officials working to promote a global dimension in schools. (Contains 1 figure.)