Cultivating Global Citizenship through Higher Education: A Reflection on the Development from Civic to Global Engagement
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Congratulations to the authors on a very interesting article that brings together several arguments cohesively with very thought provoking questions and issues for discussion. The level of critical thinking indicates a robust approach to the evidence that increases the importance of this article to educators, in particular policy and strategic issues in relation to the purpose of higher education institutions.
This is a subjective matter and therefore for author reflection rather than direction. Verbs such as ‘look’ have come to usage but reduce the impact of the actual intention of robust research work. At lines 23 and 419 the authors may consider using a verb that has much more relevant impact such as ‘investigate’.
The article is well presented but a final proof read is suggested to remove remaining minor errors such as what appears to be extra spaces at lines 42, 103, 105, 423 and 555 and an extra letter (e) at line 374.
This is a suggestion for author reflection as it may not be relevant to what they consider the scope of the paper and may add length beyond publisher guidance. The use of ‘Graduate Attributes’ is increasing across some countries and higher education institutions. Many of these institutional claims for Graduate Attributes indicate that students will, through their higher education experience, gain some aspect of civic engagement. The authors cover some limitations/issues in lines 271-275 and may wish to follow up that area by investigating the use of Graduate Attributes by some higher education institutions as a formal assertion of achievements and their reliability as evidence for students achieving civic engagement as an attribute.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The article “Cultivating Global Citizenship through Higher Education: a reflection on the development from Civic to Global Engagement” deals with an important subject, especially in the field of education sciences. The author(s) provide an overview of the development from citizenship and Civic Engagement to Global Citizenship and Global Engagement as one of the tasks of higher education institutions.
The paper is clearly written, and the title and summary correspond to the content of the manuscript. However, there are some remarks which I consider relevant to reinvestigate before publication.
The first thing I miss is a critical approach to the analysed subject. To contribute scientifically, the authors should start with a definition of the problem and research questions which should be further analysed and discussed. In the present form, the author(s) offer an overview of existing concepts on civic engagement and active participation and do not go in-depth.
Further on, the introduction of (global) civic education in faculties and high education institutions could not be analysed without the reflection on secondary-level education and what students bring into higher education. Since there are already citations to the OECD definitions of global competence, why not mention the outcomes of the PISA study (2018) which brings relevant results of 15-year-old students and their global competence level? Those are the students which will continue their education on a tertiary level (at least some of them) and therefore some insights into the analysed subject would already be there for them. Also, when talking about the teachers’ ability to lecture on the analysed subject, there are some results of the OECD TALIS studies which deal with the teacher experiences in teaching global/civic engagement.
Additionally, the author(s) rely on the Service Learning method as a pedagogical tool applied to engage students in active participation. It is not clear whether this method is universally applied as a tool, or is it context dependent, e.g. in the American education system or the countries of the global north. Are there any other pedagogical methods which could be applied? The guidelines that author(s) propose are practically reduced to studying abroad as the best method of obtaining global/civic competence – however, this activity is rarely available and affordable to all students. Some critical reflection could be added. Also, what comes to my mind are possible methods relying on ICT and virtual classrooms – the examples we saw during the COVID-19 pandemic. Would there be some examples/methods which could be transferred to global engagement and accessible to all students?
Finally, the authors relate the (global) civic engagement to inclusion in the labour market which comes after the finished tertiary education. What is with the students who completed vocational secondary school programmes who directly after secondary school start to work? – Again, there is a necessity to provide an overview on secondary education, or at least refer to this group of students as possibly different in obtaining civic education.
I would encourage the author(s) to reflect on the mentioned issues and apply a more critical approach in his/her/their paper.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors have successfully addressed all the remarks and contributed better clarity and precision in the revised manuscript. I suggest the newly entered sections remain since they contribute to the explanation of the possible relation between secondary and tertiary education as well as teacher education. The revised version provides a more critical approach to the analysed subject. I believe it is suitable for publication.
