Cognitive mapping of critical global citizenship education: Conversations with teacher educators in Norway

In light of recent changes within Norway’s teacher education and its perceived global position as a champion of human rights and equality, this exploratory study had two pursuits. First, we put forth a cognitive mapping heuristic for what we refer to as “critical/neoliberal” Global Citizenship Education (GCE), using a semiotic square that encourages greater nuance between and among two commonly used terms (“neoliberal” and “critical”) and their “contraries”. Second, based on ideas brought forth by our heuristic, we engaged in conversations with teacher educators in Norway who have published on global- and citizenship-related topics. We asked them to share their thoughts on how GCE is currently viewed and enacted across Norway, as well as what tensions and prospects exist. Our conversations highlighted that teacher educators in Norway have the freedom to incorporate global dimensions into their teaching and curriculum on an individualized and value-driven basis. However, there is a need to explicitly incorporate education about political economy when teaching GCE in order to ensure that the principles of a critical, not-neoliberal approach become known. © 2022, The Author(s) under exclusive licence to UNESCO International Bureau of Education.