Global citizenship education in school curricula. A Polish perspective

The purpose of this study is to present global citizenship education from a Polish perspective. Analyzing the issue, the first part of this paper presents the development of citizenship education, followed by the current status of global citizenship education in Polish schools. In the second part of the study I draw attention to national curricula and other supporting documents published after 1945, to verify whether issues of global citizenship education in Poland are included in the curricula, and if so, what they highlight. I then argue that global citizenship education in Poland is based on a framework of world-centered perspectives within a national context. In this understanding, global citizenship education is aimed at creating citizens who are members of the world community, without giving up their own national identity. The Polish perspective on global citizenship education urges pupils to consider global problems as part of the challenges of their own country, and offers the perception of local and global problems being linked and complementary to each other. The inspiration to write this paper came from the research work I undertook as part of the international Erasmus+ project, ‘Future Youth School Forums’, led by Oxfam UK, funded with the support of the European Commission and the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education.