Speaker
Description
Target 4.7. of Goal 4 of the Sustainable Development Goals raised by the United Nations (UN, n.d.) emphasizes the roles of education, one of which is to ensure the promotion of global citizenship.
Global citizenship, a concept that basically reflects interconnectedness and collective responsibility, has been attracting the attention of the public as well as the academic circles for some time. While there have been a number of studies related to global citizenship and global citizenship education, those focusing on the perceptions of certain groups of people in some particular regions are still limited. This study explored the perceptions of undergraduate students in the Mekong Delta Region of Vietnam regarding cosmopolitan and advocacy approaches to global citizenship. The research involved 150 undergraduate students of a university in the Mekong Delta Region, Vietnam. The study utilized a survey, which was built in light of the typology of Oxley and Morris (2013). The questionnaire consisted of 27 items categorized into the two types - cosmopolitan and advocacy – of global citizenship.
The results reveal that the students in the region have alignment with both types of global citizenship, but with different levels. This study contributes to the body of research on global citizenship and highlights the importance of global citizenship education which fosters an approach that includes both cosmopolitan and advocacy elements for a sustainable development future.
Biography
Mr. Huynh Van Hien is a lecturer of English, working at Can Tho University, Vietnam. He holds a master's degree in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages), and a doctoral degree in Sustainable Development. He used to serve as a youth union leader and the deputy director of the International Relations Department of Can Tho University. Besides, he has been working as an interpreter, involved in many different projects of a wide range of domestic and international organizations. With the experience obtained from his teaching, interpreting and leadership, he has opportunities to study about the young as well as the trends in sustainable development and world development.
Mr. Huynh Van Hien's research foci are on the combination of teaching methods and teaching curricula that contribute to sustainable development, some of which are global citizenship and global citizenship education. He is especially interested in building the characteristics of global citizens for the people, especially the younger generations, in the Mekong River Delta Region and in Vietnam as a whole.
