Global citizenship within the supranational political framework

Life in schools is intense. So much so that it barely leaves time for reflection and asking important questions. The urgency of daily life dictates our agendas as teachers. For this reason, in this chapter we will try to open a window to understand how supranational and international organizations address global citizenship in their policies. Although these organizations may seem distant or unrelated, their influence on our work as teachers is ever-increasing. Before moving on to this explanation, it seems appropriate to mention some of the most important organizations in education,
among which UNESCO and the OECD stand out in particular.

These political actors influence the educational agendas of countries around the world in different ways (Dale, 1999). They rarely "impose" measures that nation-states must implement, since these international and supranational organizations do not usually have the necessary power to force countries to incorporate their measures. Therefore, they try to be suggestive—and convincing—in their policies. For this reason, they also produce numerous reports, books, publications, and seminars where they extol the virtues and highlight the importance of adopting their vision of education. On other occasions, they also encourage the adoption of successful models from other countries, arguing that if it has worked for them, it will work for others. They also offer recommendations for harmonizing and/or standardizing different aspects of education. The Bologna Process in the European Union is a good example, as it created a common European university system.

In fact, the most representative example of their approach is found in PISA. Since this standardized test was first administered in 2000, nation-states have dedicated considerable effort to achieving top scores on this test, or, in other words, to having one of the best education systems in the world. To reach this goal, we have shifted from teaching content to developing skills, which is precisely what PISA assesses. Along these lines, the number of hours dedicated to subjects—literacy and STEM—directly linked to the PISA assessment has been increased. Lest these figures be mere coincidence, some countries, such as Spain, have justified changes in their educational policies with the aim of improving their results on this test. Therefore, these organizations are not detached from the education we experience in classrooms; rather, they are the puppeteers who guide the actions of the characters who, like marionettes, are part of this play called "Global Education." Come and see…

In this chapter, therefore, we encourage you to build upon what we learned in the previous chapter regarding the concept and idea (which we call a paradigm) of global citizenship and add another line of reflection: how do supranational and international organizations interpret this concept, since each actor plays their part on the educational stage?