Unpacking the Call to Action in Early Years Education - Teaching Global Citizenship Through a Critical Lens

Oct 15, 2026

The presentation examines how educators can unpack the “call to action” in early years education by framing global citizenship and human rights education through critical literacy rather than charity. Grounded in lived experiences and supported by published scholarship, it argues that early childhood spaces often lack resources for holistic citizenship education. It calls for disruptive pedagogies that interrogate power and privilege, enabling students to understand and respond to causal agents of injustice across local, national, and global contexts.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages8

Reading Time20 min

AccessFree to download

Unpacking the Call to Action in Early Years Education

Human rights education and global citizenship through a critical lens

Moving beyond charity toward solidarity and social justice

Unpacking the Call to Action in Early Years Education: Teaching Global Citizenship Through a Critical Lens Lynn Nicol Thank you for the opportunity to be part of this conference. It was a privilege to present, and an honour to represent my family and Brandon School Division. I am currently working toward a Master of Education in curriculum and instruction. It is my pleasure to share with you the thinking behind my presentation, based on an article that has been published in the BU Journal of Graduate Studies in Education (Nicol, 2016a) and in The MERN Journal (Nicol, 2016b). This is a topic that I am passionate about. I believe that all ages would benefit from a discourse in Human Rights Education (HRE) in global citizenship discussions – inside and outside of formal educational spheres. In actuality, on a recent trip abroad, I engaged in a conversation with a young man who wanted to know my purpose for travelling. When I told him about presenting at a human rights conference, he asked “What are human rights?” Through the course of conversation, I learned that his family lives in Sweden, relocated as refugees from Argentina. Further, it turns out he was a guest on a Canadian radio program this past February. He was discussing the Canadian government commitment of sponsoring 25 000 refugees from Syria in a span of four months, relative to the Swedish commitment of 25 000 people per month. As a freelance journalist, he had professional and personal expertise in this topic, yet he asked me,“What are human rights?” This confirms the urgency in situating rights-based, social justice edification in all the spheres of influence each of us holds. In my school division, if students are exposed to citizenship education, it is exclusively through the lens of the personally responsible citizen “doing good” because it “feels good.” It is my goal to support educators in adopting praxis to guide students in engaging citizenship education that moves beyond this ideology, to that whereby students have the critical literacy to probe and respond to the causal agents of injustice. To this end, our division has but one course in grade 12, and it is an optional course at that. In early years education, it is a lonely landscape. I believe that this work must attend all educational spaces, at all grade levels and across all curriculums, which is indeed a challenge. Global Citizenship Education (GCE) , in its noblest terms, is a commitment made by educators to provide students with opportunities to situate themselves as citizens within a global community. My presentation addressed the lay of the land for global citizenship and human rights education in early years spaces. Drawing upon the context of my experience educating through school-based, divisional, and provincial mandates, my work exposed that Manitoba educators face a dearth of resources for holistic citizenship education in early years classrooms. The discussion emphasized the need for a vibrant discourse on the placement of social justice resources in early years to inform and support educational experiences that move beyond acts of charity. Only through disruptive pedagogies that challenge structures of power and privilege are requisite spaces of interrogation created. This is crucial to the deliberative discourse necessary for education that moves beyond charity to actions of solidarity around equity and social justice – locally, nationally, and globally. It has become clear that I must keep one important aim close at hand: that is, to unpack the exclusively charitable response that attends much classroom instruction. BRANDON UNIVERSITY BRANDON, MANITOBA, CANADA GRADUATE STUDENT, EDUCATOR, PARTNER, & PARENT I would like to provide you with a bit of background to situate the internal development of this topic. I bring to this discussion personal, familial, occupational, and academic perspectives on the topic of human rights. I come from a small, strongly conservative, a

FAQs

Why does the presentation emphasize human rights education in global citizenship discussions?

It argues that all ages benefit from Human Rights Education when global citizenship is taught through a rights-based, critical lens rather than superficial ideas of “doing good.”

What concern is raised about how citizenship education is delivered in the presenter’s school division?

Students are exposed only through the personally responsible citizen who “does good” because it “feels good,” which limits critical literacy about injustice and its causes.

What does the presenter propose to change in early years education?

She calls for disruptive pedagogies and a vibrant discourse that positions social justice resources in early years to support interrogation of power and privilege, fostering solidarity around equity and social justice.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Anna Hans