ABSTRACT
Thus far I have described the two primary features of global citizenship education as both global competencies and global consciousness—a set of skills, knowledge, and ethical sensibilities that proponents hope will satisfy longings for a better world of cosmopolitan thriving. Although there are clearly tensions between the consciousness and competencies features, I have argued that both serve to form students around particular visions of the individualized modern self. In this chapter I argue this is problematic for two reasons. First, the universal language of global citizenship masks the fact that it is, in its current forms, undergirded by a particular ideal of Western individualism. Its current claims for universality are thus misguided inasmuch as the particularity of its moral sources is unacknowledged, as are its unintended but coercive forms of social control. Second, the goals of global citizenship education for a tolerant and peaceful world are problematic insofar as Western liberal individualism fails to make room for the strong collective identities that persist in many parts of the world. Can a global citizenship of Western individualism be truly global and account for thick differences around the world?
