826000

research-article20192019
SGOXXX10.1177/2158244019826000SAGE OpenAnderson

Original Research

SAGE Open

Advancing Global Citizenship Education

January-March 2019: 1­–7
© The Author(s) 2019
DOI: 10.1177/2158244019826000
https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244019826000

Through Global Competence and Critical journals.sagepub.com/home/sgo

Literacy: Innovative Practices for Inclusive

Childhood Education

Alida Anderson1

Abstract
This article presents a critical policy overview of inclusive education and global citizenship education (GCED) and offers
two innovative childhood education practices that support inclusion of children with disabilities through dimensions of
physical and conceptual access, both noted implementation barriers to inclusive education across the globe. The first section
summarizes global human rights and education initiatives that support GCED through access for children with disabilities
in education and in societies. This section addresses questions of how inclusion plays a central role to the advancement of
GCED, summarizing major global policy advances to inclusion, and highlighting how advancement of inclusive childhood
education supports GCED. This article concludes with two innovative childhood education practices, global competence and
critical literacy, which offer critical potential to contribute to GCED through conceptual and physical dimensions of access,
and ultimately promote inclusive education.

Keywords
inclusive, education, disabilities, childhood, global citizenship, critical literacy

Introduction Currently, school or other community-based education

Global citizenship education (GSED) has gained prominence
among education, human rights, and public policy stakehold-
ers, as evident from its place among the three priorities of the
United Nations Global Education First Initiative (UNESCO,
2014). Concern about inclusion of children with disabilities,
among all children in childhood education and in societies
has been central to the United Nations’ development of its
global agenda in 2015. This agenda is reflected in the
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in which more than
190 nations’ leaders have committed to 17 global initiatives
to achieve by 2030 (UNESCO, 2017b).
In the past two decades, global policies and treatises
reflect commitments to educational inclusion for children
with disabilities through conceptual (attitudes, belief sys-
tems, values) and physical (environmental) dimensions of
access to childhood education services, programs, practices,
as well as to societies (see Lane & Anderson, 2017 for a pol-
icy review). Despite these global policy advancements, the
status of inclusive education for children with disabilities
remains relatively bleak due to varied implementation chal-
lenges among many countries and governments (Schuelka &
Johnstone, 2012).
programs exclude an estimated 100 million children with
disabilities, who face disproportionately high levels of pov-
erty, discrimination, and inequities as the largest marginal-
ized population across the globe (UNESCO, 2017a). The
number of individuals with disabilities who are excluded
from participation within their communities results in sig-
nificant barriers to activity and participation in global and
local governance processes and exacerbates their marginal-
ization. In other words, exclusion in education and in societ-
ies beginning in early childhood perpetuates a cycle of
poverty and discrimination for individuals with disabilities
that is difficult to escape.
Concern about inclusion of children with disabilities,
among all children in childhood education and in societies
has been central to the United Nations’ development of its
1
American University, Washington, DC, USA
Corresponding Author:
Alida Anderson, School of Education, American University, 4400
Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20016, USA.
Email: aanderso@american.edu

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2 SAGE Open
global agenda in 2015, as well as in global education devel-
opment partnerships between the United States and other
countries. For example, recent United States legislation in
support of global education development for children with
disabilities has been enacted through the passage of the
Reinforcing Education Accountability in Development Act
(READ Act, H.R. 115, 2017). This legislation has been
crafted in with 50 partner countries to provide basic educa-
tional access for “marginalized and vulnerable children,” in
which children with disabilities are named. The implemented
legislation is intended to accelerate the impact of basic edu-
cation programs around the world to improve access to edu-
cation for more than 263 million out-of-school children and
youth (Brennan, 2017).
Critical Theory and Access
In considering how global policies are truly inclusive in a
critical and meaningful manner, it is important to consider
critical conceptions of access. Access has been defined as a
way of bringing life to consciousness; as a form of oriented
social action, and a way of relating to people and places
(Weber, 1947). Theoretically, global education policies that
identify measurable points of access and specific human
rights should be necessarily connected to innovative child-
hood education practices to address conceptual and physi-
cal barriers that children and families may experience in
education. However, the definition of access itself must be
critically considered for its relation to conceptual and phys-
ical dimensions. For instance, access can be framed as a
way that individuals make meaning for themselves in their
environment, in which they question their place or orienta-
tion, as well as action about the relationships between indi-
viduals and the social space (Titchkosky, 2011). Access as
embodied interpretation through orientation to self, others,
and spaces highlights its role as much more than a measur-
able entity and underscores its conceptual dimensions and
its relationship to the social and physical environment
(Titchkosky, 2011, p. 3).
Critical Theory and Disability
Another critical theoretical underpinning for examining
conceptual and physical dimensions of access through
policies and practices intended to support inclusive child-
hood education is the conception of disability. Critical
disability theory places disability as a construct based on
an individual’s interaction with and through their social
and physical environment, as well as through the “social
production of knowledge,” in which disability is too often
identified as a problem to be fixed (Titchkosky, 2000, p.
198). These lenses position for critical examination of
policies and practices as they engage discourse about what
is truly inclusive and how is it operationalized in the next
section.
UNESCO’s Sustainable Development
Goal (SDG) 4
The UNESCO SDG 4 policy goal in education is intended to
ensure inclusive and quality education for all and to promote
lifelong learning, emphasizing the need to operationalize
inclusive education practice through conceptual and physical
dimensions of access across diverse contexts for children
with disabilities. There are approximately 93 million chil-
dren with disabilities worldwide, 80% of whom reportedly
live in Global South regions. Worldwide, individuals with
disabilities comprise 15% of the total population, with dis-
proportional numbers excluded from education (UNESCO
estimates that children with disabilities account for 30% of
children worldwide excluded from education; UNESCO,
2017a). Due to this exclusion, children with disabilities lack
access to high quality or innovative programs such as those
that promote global citizenship, since they represent a dis-
proportionate placement in “specialty” settings, with dispro-
portionate numbers of children with reported behavioral and
intellectual disabilities (UNESCO, 2017a). The global status
of inclusion practice reflects operational challenges to
access, both conceptually and physically, given the diversity
of contexts (e.g., local, regional, cultural, economic; Boon,
2015; Kang & Plunkett, 2015; Ntuli & Traore, 2013).
History of Global Human Rights Policies
Supporting Inclusion Through Access
Current global childhood education policy (e.g., SDG 4,
READ) is intended to support inclusion of children with dis-
abilities through access (conceptual and physical dimen-
sions), reflecting previous developments, in which the United
Nations increasingly has specified inclusion through concep-
tual and physical dimensions of access, progress, and partici-
pation for children with disabilities in education and social
programs; however, these procedures do not address the
critical inquiry that education and schools must engage the
community in to meaningfully engage and build shared and
equitable understandings and relationships.
Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).  The CRC (2002),
developed by the Office of the United Nations High Com-
missioner for Human Rights, outlined conceptual and physi-
cal dimensions of access for children with disabilities as the
following:
1. (recognizing) that a mentally or physically disabled
child should enjoy a full and decent life, in conditions
which ensure dignity, promote self-reliance and facil-
itate the child’s active participation in the
community;
2. (recognizing) the right of the disabled child to special
care and shall encourage and ensure the extension,
subject to available resources, to the eligible child
Anderson 3
and those responsible for his or her care, of assistance
for which application is made and which is appropri-
ate to the child’s condition and to the circumstances
of the parents or others caring for the child.
3. Recognizing the special needs of a disabled child,
assistance extended in accordance with paragraph 2
of the present article shall be provided free of charge,
whenever possible, taking into account the financial
resources of the parents or others caring for the child,
and shall be designed to ensure that the disabled child
has effective access to and receives education, train-
ing, health care services, rehabilitation services,
preparation for employment, and recreation opportu-
nities in a manner conducive to the child’s achieving
the fullest possible social integration and individual
development, including his or her cultural and spiri-
tual development; and
4. (promoting) in the spirit of international cooperation,
the exchange of appropriate information in the field
of preventive health care and of medical, psychologi-
cal, and functional treatment of disabled children,
including dissemination of and access to information
concerning methods of rehabilitation, education and
vocational services, with the aim of enabling States
Parties to improve their capabilities and skills and to
widen their experience in these areas. In this regard,
particular account shall be taken of the needs of
developing countries (CRC, 2002, Article 23).
United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Simi-
lar to the development of the CRC, the MDGs aimed to
address inclusion through conceptual and physical dimen-
sions of access for children with disabilities in education and
communities. Developed in 2000, the MDGs represented a
new global partnership to reduce extreme poverty and to
include children with disabilities through increased access to
education and to societies, identifying time-bound targets
(UN Millenium Project, 2006; World Health Organization,
2015). By 2015, many countries significantly had reduced
their poverty rates; however, the MDGs did not eradicate
global poverty nor address conceptual or physical dimen-
sions of access for children with disabilities, among margin-
alized communities in need of access to education and social
services (UNESCO, 2017a).
Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities
(CRPD). Another global policy that has aimed to influence
inclusive education through conceptual and physical dimen-
sions of access is the CRPD, named the first human rights
treaty of the 21st century (United Nations, 2007). The CRPD
set the benchmark for national, regional, and local policies to
include individuals with disabilities in governing processes
(UNESCO, 2009), with Article 7 having implications on
inclusion of individuals with disabilities through physical and
conceptual dimensions of access insofar as the following:
1. Parties shall take all necessary measures to ensure the
full enjoyment by children with disabilities of all
human rights and fundamental freedoms on an equal
basis with other children.
2. In all actions concerning children with disabilities,
the best interests of the child shall be a primary
consideration.
3. Parties shall ensure that children with disabilities
have the right to express their views freely on all mat-
ters affecting them, their views being given due
weight in accordance with their age and maturity, on
an equal basis with other children, and to be provided
with disability and age-appropriate assistance to real-
ize that right.
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).  UNESCO’s develop-
ment of the SDGs has continued the vision of the MDGs in
ensuring access to universal primary education for all. The
SDGs specify societal inequities faced by individuals with
disabilities and outline 17 global goals that participating
members should achieve by 2030. Broadly, the SDGs aim to
eradicate extreme poverty and inequality, and to address sus-
tainability issues worldwide. The SDG 4 focuses on inclu-
sive education, calling for nations to “Ensure inclusive and
equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning
opportunities for all” (UNESCO, 2009, 2017a, 2017b). SDG
4 aims to promote global citizenry and reflects previous
goals for inclusion of children with disabilities in education
and in societies.
Summary
The past two decades of global policy advancements have
emphasized the goal of inclusive education for children
with disabilities, among all individuals, extending from
childhood to adulthood, through conceptual (attitudes,
rights, belief systems) and physical (proximity, geo-
graphic location, availability of services/supports) dimen-
sions of access. The challenge across global communities
remains in implementation; and recent research demon-
strates clear links between diverse community contexts
and dimensions of access as key factors in implementing
inclusive practices (e.g., Kang & Plunkett, 2015; Ntuli &
Traore, 2013; Pearson, 2015; Sukumaran & Loveridge,
2015). Most recent global disability scholarship features
a shift in the conceptualization of disability from the
medical model to the social model, citing historical,
social, and political influences (Grech & Soldatic, 2016).
It is in this shift that global citizenship education (GCED)
contributes to a social model of disability, consistent with
critical disability theory, in which inclusion of children
and families in education and in society are valued
through engagement, awareness, and shared
understandings.
4 SAGE Open
Global Citizenship Education, Global
Competence, and Educational
Diplomacy
Global citizenship education has the potential to advance
inclusive education and to improve education more broadly,
through recent initiatives in global competence and educa-
tional diplomacy (UNESCO, 2014). In tandem with the
global policy initiatives of the past decades aimed at address-
ing conceptual and physical dimensions of access to promote
inclusion of children with disabilities in education and in
societies, GCED initiatives in global competence and in edu-
cational diplomacy contribute to operationalizing inclusive
education for individuals with disabilities across the lifespan
through awareness, appreciation, and value of diversity
across the human spectrum.
How Does Global Competence Support GCED
and Improve Access?
Global competence has been at the forefront of 21st century
education initiatives over the past decade (Mansilla &
Jackson, 2011; UNESCO, 2014). Global competence is both
a process and a set of outcomes spanning early childhood to
secondary education, with particular importance to early
childhood inclusion (Mansilla, 2017). Four elements of the
basic definition of global competence include international
awareness, appreciation for cultural diversity, linguistic pro-
ficiency, and competitive skills (National Education
Association [NEA], 2010). Specific emphases are placed on
acquiring in-depth knowledge and understanding of interna-
tional issues, appreciation of and ability to learn and work
with people from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds,
foreign language proficiency, and skills to function produc-
tively in an interdependent world community (NEA, 2010).
Teaching for global competence occurs through disciplinary
and interdisciplinary educational contexts; however, it has
predominated at the secondary-age level (Mansilla &
Jackson, 2011). Global citizenship education is sufficiently
broad to accommodate conceptualization of interconnected
and overlapping factors involved in a model of inclusive
childhood education that addresses conceptual and physical
dimensions of access.
Global competence shares features of inclusive early
childhood education programs such as socio-cultural under-
standing and acceptance through the use of eco-cultural
approaches with children who have disabilities and their
families and caregivers (Blanchett, Klingner, & Harry, 2009;
Kalyanpur & Harry, 2012). The application of global compe-
tence frameworks to inclusive early childhood education
practice is relatively new (Mansilla, 2017; Organisation for
Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD], 2016).
Although new terrain may sometimes seem questionable for
governmental bodies, it is important to recognize the ways in
which global competence can assist in the operationalization
of inclusion through conceptual and physical access through
actions (e.g., policies, initiatives, educational tools, and
technologies).
Educational Diplomacy
Educational diplomacy is an approach that addresses inclu-
sion of children with disabilities though the use of diplomatic
skills to promote and advance education through conceptual
and practical bridge building within education and among
disciplines (Center for Educational Diplomacy, 2018).
Education diplomacy results in highly productive and
dynamic relationships both within education communities
and with other sectors and disciplines (e.g., business, finance,
health, social services, technology), all of which play a role in
promoting inclusion through conceptual and physical dimen-
sions of access. For example, new relationships lead to inno-
vative and better ways of promoting, designing, and delivering
education and to advancing critical issues in education, such
as workforce development, 21st century skills, global citizen-
ship, early childhood education, access to education, quality
of education (Center for Educational Diplomacy, 2018).
Inclusive early childhood education programs share features
of educational diplomacy in emphasizing collaborative and
interdisciplinary approaches with professionals to include
children who have disabilities and their families and caregiv-
ers in early education (Friend, 2000; Odom et al., 1996).
In this view, Anderson and Wise (2017) investigated how
educational diplomacy skills (e.g., partnering, collaborating,
and coalition building) promoted inclusive early childhood
education programs in a local U.S. urban community, pro-
viding examples of community and university partnerships
and program outcomes that supported conceptual and physi-
cal dimensions of access for children with disabilities and
their caregivers. These authors explored core skills of educa-
tion diplomacy, such as engaging in effective relationships,
building partnerships, and finding innovative solutions to
education challenges for the specific purpose of including
young children with disabilities in a high-quality early child-
hood education program. The findings indicated that partner-
ships among caregivers, teachers, therapists, and university
personnel enhanced both physical and conceptual dimen-
sions of access for children with disabilities (and their care-
givers) to local educational programming.
Educational diplomacy efforts have brought together pro-
fessionals to promote shared understandings around global
inclusive education implementation issues. For instance, at
the 2017 Longview Foundation institute, scholars, research-
ers, and practitioners shared global perspectives on inclusion
strategies, teacher education, leadership, and culturally
responsive practices. Of the 40 presentations at this 3-day
institute, only two addressed early childhood inclusion in
global education contexts (Lane & Anderson, 2017; Mansilla,
2017). Mansilla’s (2017) presentation summarized the
importance of global competence to inclusive education
Anderson 5
efforts. Lane and Anderson (2017) presented a global com-
parative analysis of inclusive early childhood education pro-
grams across regions of the global north and global south,
citing challenges to inclusion stemming from systemic, cul-
tural, and physical barriers. Moreover, the relative underrep-
resentation of early childhood programming among global
perspectives on inclusion reflects the need for more informa-
tion on innovative practices that promote global citizenry, as
well as a reflection of the status of inclusion worldwide. The
current status of early childhood inclusion underscores its
need for a place in the discussion of and vitality to promoting
a lifelong global citizenry.
Summary
Global human rights policy development shapes GCED
through current initiatives such as global competence and
educational diplomacy. Further consideration is warranted
on how to operationalize access, both conceptually and phys-
ically, to improve conditions for children with disabilities in
childhood education programs and in societies globally, as
conditions and resources vary across regions, cultures, and
countries (Schuelka & Johnstone, 2012).
Considering the status of inclusion (to education and to
societies) for children with disabilities, among all children,
and its relationship to GCED, a direction for growth is in the
development of bidirectional and shared understanding
among children, caregivers, teachers, families, and policy
makers. This growth has potential to address conceptual and
physical dimensions of access in inclusive childhood educa-
tion, which are barriers to implementation in countries,
regions, and communities with diverse and unique needs
(Pearson, 2015).
Global Competence and Critical
Literacy
Global competence and critical literacy are two innovative
childhood education practices that support GCED and promote
inclusion through conceptual and physical dimensions of access.
These practices provide teachers, caregivers, and children tools
to discover uniqueness and shared understandings, which
underpin conceptual inclusion and influence practice (i.e., phys-
ical and conceptual dimensions of access, which potentially can
facilitate inclusion or create barriers to inclusion).
Developing Global Competence Through Shared
Understandings
There are multiple approaches to global competence (OECD,
2016). OECD identifies 15 components of global compe-
tence through the lifespan. Definitions of global competence
differ according to regions of the world in the sense that less
focus is directed toward the individual as a central compo-
nent of perspectives and understandings. Rather than on the
individual as central to the definition, interrelationships
among individuals, families, communities, and societies are
emphasized to promote shared understandings (Deardorff,
2011). Mansilla and Jackson’s (2011) model for develop-
ment of global competence through the four quadrants of
investigating the world, recognizing perspectives, taking
action, and communicating ideas provides an inclusive
framework in which conceptual and physical dimensions of
access are addressed. An expanded model (see Figure 1)
addresses (1) delivering/implementing local processes/prac-
tices tailored to individual countries, cultures, and societies,
and (2) includes teachers, caregivers, community members,
and policy makers as well as students/children, to promote
bidirectional and shared understandings that support inclu-
sion through access, addressing both conceptual (intercul-
tural) and physical (environmental) dimensions.
Critical Literacy
Key qualities of critical literacy include its potential for atten-
tiveness to, and care for community-based social and political
circumstances and conditions. Critical literacy supports
GCED through active and necessary engagement in the rela-
tionship between oneself and their local-global context and
arises from social and political conditions of their community
(Mulcahy, 2011; Stevens & Bean, 2007; Vasquez, 2014).
Critical literacy marks the use of language (tools) to exercise
power, enhance life, and/or question sources of privilege and
injustice (Comber, 2001). Critical literacy is similar to critical
thinking in terms of textual analysis (e.g., how does the text
work; what are the effects of the text; who produced the text,
under what circumstances, and for what type of audience?).
However, critical literacy has the potential to increase partici-
pants’ engagement by inquiry (e.g., “How does this affect
me?” or “Where do I see evidence of this issue or problem in
my community?”; Vasquez, 2014). Although critical literacy
has only recently been considered in relation to meaningful
understandings of media sources and messaging (media lit-
eracy), critical literacy as an inclusive educational approach is
well supported (Sullivan, 2017). It is generally agreed that
critical literacy, media literacy, and political literacy are inter-
connected, as they share features of positioning and perspec-
tive-taking, along with the critical discourse about the nature
and intent of messages and intended audiences. This critical
inquiry is thoroughly inclusive of the critical construct of dis-
ability and access, in terms of orientation through positioning
of self and social environment.
Summary
Global competence and critical literacy are two innovative
approaches to promoting GCED in inclusive childhood edu-
cation that support individuals across the lifespan. Global
competence education calls on teachers, caregivers, commu-
nity members, and policy makers as well as students/children
to promote bidirectional and shared understandings that sup-
port inclusion through access, addressing both conceptual
6 SAGE Open
Figure 1.  Model for global competence for inclusion through physical and conceptual access.
Source. Adapted from Mansilla and Jackson (2011).
(intercultural) and physical (environmental) dimensions.
Critical literacy supports self-advocacy by questioning
sources of power, place, norms, privilege, and injustice.
These approaches feature shared understandings and appre-
ciation for uniqueness to promote access at all levels in edu-
cation and in societies for all children, including children
with disabilities and their families.
Conclusion
Innovative childhood education practices that support
inclusion are imperative for social justice education and
for the progress of education to focus on meaningful
human rights, relationships, and aspects of humanity such
as creativity. These inclusive approaches are supported by
critical disability conceptualizations and hold significant
premise for the use in inclusive childhood education
because they reframe disability toward understanding self
and others within education and society. Critical and mean-
ingful connections, approaches, and initiatives that have
been implemented or not yet implemented have the poten-
tial to further support inclusion and access for children
with disabilities and entail a broadened scope of education
to include fundamental shifts that help to diminish concep-
tual and physical barriers to inclusive education. The poli-
cies reviewed are lacking in support of inclusive education
that would address conceptual and physical barriers
through such a sufficiently broadened view of education.
In reviewing the procedural language of the international
policies in support of inclusive education, one might ques-
tion where is the enactment of meaningful change (e.g.,
global human rights, education initiatives, multidisci-
plinary approaches, creative arts)? Global competence,
critical literacy, and global citizenship education assist and
support the inclusion of children with disabilities in societ-
ies because they position all members as equals with the
shared goal of understanding place, circumstance, and
relationship between selves and environments. In this way,
the scope of education could be broadened to include these
fundamental shifts and improvements.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect
to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, author-
ship, and/or publication of this article.
ORCID iD
Alida Anderson https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0603-7659
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Author Biography
Alida Anderson, PhD, is an associate professor in the School of
Education at American University in Washington, DC. Her research
and practice interests include developing and implementing inclu-
sive approaches to language and literacy learning.