Education for global citizenship in primary school

Abstract

This article aims to present the results of a global citizenship education project focusing on one of its dimensions, fair trade, using strategies to raise awareness of linguistic diversity. The project lasted six sessions and was carried out with children from a 4th grade class attending a primary school in the region of Aveiro (Portugal). This qualitative nature project is an action research study and the data collected was submitted to content analysis. The analysis of the data reveals that, despite the short duration of the project, the activities promoted contributed to the development of the students’ knowledge in the various areas of the curriculum, as well as knowledge about global issues such as fair trade, child labour and linguistic diversity. The results of the study indicate that the project gave the children with moments of reflection, questioning and the development of empathic feelings in relation to Others, their languages and the world, awakening the children to a new vision of themselves, the Other and the world (global and interdependent), of which they are all part.