Chapter 8: The Press and Global Education

In its short history global education has entered the media spotlight when its content and pedagogy have provoked heated controversies, reasoned debates, and, at times, support for the ways in which American students learn about their world (Schukar, 1993). Unlike other approaches to teaching about the world, global education is characterized by the study of multiple perspectives, cross-cultural experiential learning, and global interconnectedness—cultural, economic, political, environmental and technological (Anderson, 1979; Becker, 1979; Case, 1993; Hanvey, 1975; Pike & Selby, 1995; Wilson, 1993). Recognizing global education as an emerging trend, the Association of Supervision and Curriculum Development noted in 1989 that 23 states required that global or world studies be taught in K-12 schools (O’Neil, 1989). After the attacks of 9/11 global education took on a new immediacy as reporters first sought out stories of how schools were responding to terrorism and later how they were teaching about ongoing events in Afghanistan and Iraq.