What Can Counterterrorism Learn from Cognitive Justice in Global Citizenship Education?

Abstract

Global citizenship education (GCE) has been elevated by the UN to form both part of its Sustainable Development Goals for education and the central tenet in its Preventing Violent Extremism through Education (PVE-E) strategy. I argue that GCE has no chance of playing a role in counterterrorism unless it embraces a decolonial approach to cognitive justice. The paper provides a descriptive account of the politics of GCE and its take-up by the UN and UNESCO, including an account of postcolonial and decolonial approaches to GCE. The paper conducts an interpretive discourse analysis of textual data around UNESCO's approach to GCE and PVE-E to assess how, if at all, history and historical literacy is addressed. Through this analysis, combined with interview data, previous ethnographic experience, and secondary literature in the field of terrorism studies and political violence, the paper concludes by making a case for the inclusion of historical literacy in education designed to promote peace, justice, and global citizenship. The paper makes no naïve claims about GCE as a panacea for political violence; rather it suggests that if there is any hope of it performing the function that UNESCO ascribes to it, it will only be through the inclusion of cognitive justice. Show more