Importance of Becoming a Global Citizen

Assignment Instructions

Prepare: View the Globalization at a Crossroads series episode and read the article A Model of Global Citizenship: Antecedents and Outcomes by Stephen Reysen and Iva Katzarska-Miller (2013). Go to the Ashford University Library, and locate one additional source on global citizenship that will help support your viewpoint. Reflect: Please take some time to reflect on how the concept of global citizenship has shaped your identity, and think about how being a global citizen has made you a better person in your community.

Write: Use the Week 1 Example Assignment Guide when addressing the following prompts:

Describe and explain a clear distinction between “globalism” and “globalization” after viewing the video and reading the article.
Describe how being a global citizen in the world of advanced technology can be beneficial to your success in meeting your personal, academic, and professional goals.
Explain why there has been disagreement between theorists about the definition of global citizenship and develop your own definition of global citizenship after reading the article by Reysen and Katzarska-Miller.
Choose two of the six outcomes of global citizenship from the article (i.e., intergroup empathy, valuing diversity, social justice, environmental sustainability, intergroup helping, and the level of responsibility to act for the betterment of this world).
- Explain why those two outcomes are the most important in becoming a global citizen compared to the others.
Describe at least two personal examples or events in your life that illustrate the development of global citizenship based on the two outcomes you chose.
Identify two specific general education courses.
- Explain how each course influenced you to become a global citizen.

Global Citizenship – Sample Answer

Importance of Developing Global Citizenship

Global citizenship is a topic that of great controversy following lack of consensus on the best definition to adopt to describe it. This results to various definitions of global citizenship based on theorist perspective and discipline. However, this variation has not influenced the development of globalization, or individuals’ effort to be global citizens. The change of technology and growth of commerce has highly promoted globalization, such that people have no choice than to work on being global citizens. This paper focuses on identifying the most appropriate definition of global citizenship, analyzing its importance and identifying mean that one can employ to attain global citizenship.

Benefits of Being a Global Citizen

Being a global citizens helps one to known his or her identity, to understand his or her emotions and to integrate his emotion in a manner that he understand that people are different and with their own unique identity. With this knowledge, one is able to suppress his or her own emotions, beliefs, and cultural values among other things he may use to identify himself while dealing with other people to be able to accommodate them (Infobase). This helps one not to impose personal beliefs, cultural value and life perception on others and hence promoting the level of coexistence among them. Thus, being a global citizen can highly promote my ability to connect with others and to learn more from them.This can highly improve my multicultural skills, an aspect that can promote my adaptability in any work environment in the world. Global citizenship also helps one to think internationally while solving or addressing issues, either in a work environment or in academic. This will highly help me in considering all possible available solutions in the world and select the best among them while solving problems.

Global Citizenship Definition

There is no single standard definition of global citizenships. This is due to disagreement among theorists focusing on this matter and development of this definition based variation in perspectives and disciplines. In this regard, there are a number of definitions provided for global citizenship from different theorists. Among the common definition include philosophical theorists’ definition which highlight ethics and morals, while education theorists who focus on global awareness in their definition. To develop a standard definition, the article finds the importance of integrating all schools of thoughts in the definition of global citizenship. Among the included schools of thoughts include global awareness which refers to one interconnectedness with other people, normative environment which focus on persons and their settings that are imparted by related global citizen cultural pattern, social justice, and valuing diversity among others. After all these thoughts are integrated, global citizenship is thus defined as caring, awareness and acceptance of cultural diversity while upholding sustainability and social justices, together with a sense of responsibility (Reysen & Katzarska-Miller, 2013). In my perspective, I would define global citizenship as the ability to connect with the community of the emerging world, by demonstrating high multicultural literacy, respect of diversity and promotion of responsible deeds and social justice a to all.

Global Citizenship Outcome

Valuing Diversity

The world is made of different individuals with varying beliefs, norms, and cultural values. Thus to be a global citizen one must appreciate the cultural diversity and learn to respect the culture of others. This makes it possible for one to live with others without judging them based on one’s culture or without wanting them to behave in a manner popular to one’s culture. By so doing, one manages to be accommodative and to learn more on the cultures of others a move that promote individual adaptability in a diverse world.

Intergroup Helping

Global citizens should be well aware of the socioeconomic gaps in the global society. While some are comfortable and happy, others are suffering in poverty, diseases, disabilities, insecurity, illiteracy and calamities among other things. A global citizen should be able to go out of his or her ways to better the life of those in the lower edge of life. This makes it possible for the global citizen to get in touch with the reality of global life, a situation that is likely to influence their future behavior, especially if given a chance to define policies that would influence life of the poor.

Global Citizenship Outcomes Personal Experience

Valuing Diversity

In the past, I have been forced by circumstances to relate with people from different parts of the world, either on business ground or academic ground. During this time, I realized the challenges that are common to all while interacting with foreigners. Among them were language barriers, different business cultures, and different interpretation of a certain behavior for people from different culture. This made me consider learning more about people’s culture and always trying to understand culture of others before making any kind of contact with people from different cultures. Since then I have learnt a lot about people’s culture, something that have made me more at ease even when relating with strangers from a culture I know nothing about and hence making a forward step into being a global citizen.

Intergroup Helping

I have always had the urge to help those in trouble and less privileged than me. However, the experienced I got for volunteering to assist in managing war related immigrants in our country changed my perspective about life and luxuries. Most of these people had comfortable life in their home country, until all was ruined by civil and political wars. The pain I saw in their eyes and in their narration made me value peace and grew my desire in helping others. Living at peace with each other promotes the likelihood of getting assistance when life situation change on one’s side. This made it possible for me to consider helping anyone in need without thinking of our relation. This act has helped in developing special attachment with human race, irrespective of individual origin of financial status and hence making me a better global citizen.

Education Courses

The two courses that refined my global citizenship include SOC 120: Introduction to Ethics and Social Responsibility. This course has promoted my ability to consider what is right and just before acting. This has made me sensitive to actions that are unjust especially in business and work environment. The knowledge acquired has helped in guiding me to embrace social justice which is one of the outcomes of global citizenship. The second course is ENG 125: Introduction to literature, a course that has promoted my ability to learn people’s culture from the literature. This course has highly promoted my value for diversity, and hence complementing my global citizenship level.

Conclusion

Global citizenship has been a topic of interest to theorists from different disciplines. As the world turns global, it is highly important for individuals to understand how they can acquire global citizenship. Based on the definition, global citizenship can be acquired by refining various characteristics used to classify global citizens. These traits include valuing diversity, social justice, environmental sustainability, intergroup empathy, acting responsibly and intergroup helping. As an individual, I have tried to improve my global citizenship by valuing diversity and helping others, and with this, I have managed to make a step forward in becoming a global citizen.

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