Global Education and Liberal Education

Overview & Synopsis

It is both possible and desirable to define liberal education in "global" terms. But the author argues that no effort to provide such an education can possibly succeed without a solid curricular base, which must be the focus of any discussion of the relationship between global and liberal education. In this article, the author looks at the rise of new forms of global education and considers its relationship to liberal education. He contends that defining a global liberal education extends the purposes of liberal education itself, and provides additional rationale at a time of some real uncertainty about commitments to the enterprise. It offers a shared agenda for further pedagogical work and best-practice reports, as educators work on to help students develop fundamental cognitive skills. Proponents of global education will benefit from a focus on the core learning outcomes they should be working toward, and their essentially liberal qualities, while proponents of liberal education will benefit from a fuller recognition of the global framework within which students need to operate.