Democracy is stagnating or declining in many parts of the world and conflict is increasing. The spread of misinformation continues to rise, leading to an erosion of trust, which was particularly egregious during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many societies and communities are becoming increasingly polarized and fractured, with new fault lines emerging along identity lines.
K-12 and higher education has an important role to play in addressing these issues. Schools can normalize democratic practices, help young people develop the skills and the mindset to understand the difference between fact and opinion, and help them learn how to disagree agreeably, or find points of contact and empathy. As momentum around a global education transformation agenda continues to build there is a unique opportunity to rethink the role education can play in supporting citizens with the skills and behaviors to thrive and live harmoniously in our complex 21st century societies.
Democracy is stagnating or declining in many parts of the world and conflict is increasing. The spread of misinformation continues to rise, leading to an erosion of trust, which was particularly egregious during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many societies and communities are becoming increasingly polarized and fractured, with new fault lines emerging along identity lines.
K-12 and higher education has an important role to play in addressing these issues. Schools can normalize democratic practices, help young people develop the skills and the mindset to understand the difference between fact and opinion, and help them learn how to disagree agreeably, or find points of contact and empathy. As momentum around a global education transformation agenda continues to build there is a unique opportunity to rethink the role education can play in supporting citizens with the skills and behaviors to thrive and live harmoniously in our complex 21st century societies.
The hybrid program will build new insights and aggregate perspectives and experiences from relevant sectors, areas of expertise, and regions. Thematic working groups will prepare recommendations for action. As participants you can expect to:
EXPERIENCE
GAIN
GIVE AND RECEIVE
This highly interactive, hybrid program will bring together 50 participants from across the globe for two online sessions and a four and half-day residential program at Schloss Leopoldskron, home of Salzburg Global Seminar, in Salzburg, Austria.
The program will address a wide range of key questions, including:
Salzburg Global Seminar’s Education for Tomorrow’s World programs bring together cross-sector and intergenerational change-makers to tackle complex challenges. This program will involve policymakers, civil society, researchers, school leaders, youth leaders, innovators and stakeholders from around the world who are engaged in civic and civil education.
The online sessions will contribute to the design and focus of the in-person program and begin the process of collaboration. The in-person program will produce a Statement or Manifesto to contribute to the expanding literature on the role that education can play in developing skills, behaviors and mindsets that support diverse ideas about citizenship and civic mindedness. Participants will also be invited to contribute to an essay collection on the topic. The specific nature of additional outcomes will be decided collectively by the program participants and then co-created.
On the sidelines of the Civic and Civil Education program, the Ban Ki-moon Centre for Global Citizens, the Permanent Mission of the Republic of Korea to the UN in Vienna and Salzburg Global Seminar hosted an International Forum on Global Citizenship Education on 14 November 2023 at Schloss Leopoldskron in Salzburg, Austria.
The forum brought together key decision-makers and knowledge experts to exchange opinions, share best-practice examples of global citizenship in action and present a path forward in the educational sector. The event offered a timely exchange on current successes and challenges in Global Citizenship Education and on the role of education in an age of climate change and artificial intelligence.
Following a high-level opening ceremony, including remarks by Dr. Heinz Fischer, 11th Federal President of Austria and Co-chair of the BKMC, H.E. Claudia Plakolm, Austrian Youth State Secretary and H.E. Ham Sangwook, Permanent Representative of the Republic of Korea to the UN in Vienna, and a keynote by former CEO of the European Institute of Technology Prof. Willem Jonker, three parallel moderated panels featuring high-level international speakers illustrated the most important developments on Global Citizenship Education.
The sessions' topics were:
After the parallel panel sessions, a plenary reunion will provide an opportunity to take stock and forecast the next steps in GCED.
Watch the highlights of the International Forum on Global Citizenship Education below:
Images of the event are available for download via Flickr. Please credit BKMC/ Christian Streili.
Solutions to the challenge of misinformation have tended to focus on making journalism more transparent or credible, doing more fact-checking, or teaching audiences media literacy skills. An overlooked area of emphasis is the emotional well-being and connectedness of the audience, and how building up community and cultivating empathy within audiences can lead them to be more committed to finding shared sets of facts to build consensus, and thus less susceptible to misinformation and its negative effects.
Jessica Roberts is an assistant professor of communication studies in the Faculty of Human Sciences at the Universidade Católica Portuguesa. She is co-author of the 2018 book, American journalism and "fake news": Examining the facts, and her research on citizen journalism and social media has been published in Journalism and the International Journal of Communication, among other publications. Roberts earned her Ph.D. at the University of Maryland and her M.A. at the University of Southern California.
This lecture was part of an annual public lecture series organized by the Salzburg Global Center for Education Transformation. The 2023 lecture was kindly supported by the US Embassy in Vienna and was delivered as part of Salzburg Global's Civic and Civil Education: Identity, Belonging and Education in the 21st Century program.
Watch the recording of the lecture below:
All images are available for download. Please credit Salzburg Global Seminar/Christian Streili. Unwatermarked images are available on request.