Global Citizenship, Solidarity and Diversity in Preschool Age: An Educational Action Research

Abstract

Citizenship education is one of the most important issues in education around the world. In recent years, many organizations such as UNICEF and OECD have highlighted the importance of developing the necessary skills in children, so that they can become active citizens who participate in society and contribute to its well-being. However, citizenship education for preschool children is often neglected, as educators consider them to be young and incapable to fully understand the concepts involved. The present study focuses on the implementation of an educational action research in 16 children of a multicultural kindergarten in Northern Greece, in order to cultivate skills that will make them active citizens. More specifically, it examines in what ways the educational actions developed can contribute to citizenship education and what are the possible learning outcomes for global citizenship, solidarity, and diversity for preschool children. The educational action research method was chosen as the most appropriate method to conduct the research. The results of the research showed that when the educational actions are implemented frequently, they can have encouraging results in the cultivation of citizenship in children and that children can understand to a significant extent the concepts of global citizenship, solidarity and diversity. Finally, the results of the action research can provide useful information to educators for the implementation and design of similar educational actions.