University of Guelph-Humber

Globalization has made the world a smaller place. Air travel and the internet now make it simpler, easier and faster to visit and experience the cultures of people around the world, but how has that access changed us? With greater exposure and awareness, are we more interested in the problems happening outside of our borders? Paul Sherman, the University of Guelph-Humber’s Program Head of Family and Community Social Services, travelled to Tokyo, Japan to find out.

Home to more than 39 million people, Tokyo is a massive city that draws visitors and immigrants from around the world. Professor Sherman was interested in knowing whether students at Tokyo’s Soka University, where a global citizenship ethos is embedded throughout its curricular and co-curricular activities, were more inclined to think about the rest of the world and their place in it. He set about investigating how global citizenship identity is learned in higher education. There was more at stake than just a feel-good attitude; Prof. Sherman says that having the perspective of a global citizen can lead to significant behavior change.

 “When students identify as global citizens, they’re more likely to embrace values like environmental sustainability, empathy, respecting diversity and helping others,” he says. “They’re more interested in other cultures and have a stronger dedication to social justice.”

Prof. Sherman chose Soka University because it’s an institution that integrates the philosophies of Nichiren Buddhism and value creation into its curriculum, and encourages its students to think about the good they can do for their communities and the world. Along with interviewing students, he also spoke to faculty and staff to find out what they were doing to help cultivate these attitudes in their students.

After collecting his data, Prof. Sherman found a clear trend that students at Soka were highly likely to consider themselves global citizens, and learned some interesting reasons as to why. Students’ environment played a large role in how they thought of themselves and many said that their university helped shape their values. If, for example, they had professors and administrators who encouraged the values of global citizenship and spoke to their importance, then the students believed in their importance too. The more often it was discussed, the more importance students attached to it. Likewise, the more they were exposed to different cultures and told about the benefits of being globally minded, the more they thought of themselves as global citizens. 

Though the lessons were gleaned in Japan, Prof. Sherman said they could apply in nearly any university.  “If we want university graduates to be more interculturally competent, then we should infuse some of this knowledge into our courses,” he says. With Soka University as a case study, it’s clearly possible to teach students to think of themselves as global citizens.

While some schools, especially in culturally homogenous areas, would have trouble developing global citizenship, a school like the University of Guelph-Humber is well-set to succeed. Located in Toronto, where around 46% of the population was born outside of Canada, it isn’t difficult to find a wide variety of different cultures. One of Prof. Sherman’s most important lessons though, is that when developing a sense of global citizenship, some self-awareness is needed.

 “Global citizens have to be intentional,” he says. “For example, in our study abroad courses, when you’re travelling to another place and meeting new people, you need to treat it as a transformative learning experience, not simply as a vacation.”

Professor Sherman recently presented his research findings at the London International Conference on Education, where he was awarded best conference paper.

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Learn more about Family and Community Social Studies at the University of Guelph-Humber.