Reflections on defamiliarisation among pre-service teachers in advancing critical global citizenship education

Abstract

This chapter aims to explore an alternative pedagogy that places students at the centre of their learning, a pedagogy which is an essential point of departure for navigating a shift from a neoliberal-informed curriculum to one that is framed by critical Global Citizenship Education (GCE) embracing a decolonial perspective.

To achieve this, the chapter specifically aims to explore the critical pedagogical practice of ‘defamiliarisation’ employed by the author of this chapter and another university educator with pre-service teachers in the Faculty of Education at a University of Technology in South Africa. This pedagogy has been employed as part of the project to decolonise the current university curriculum at the institution.

The chapter further expounds on a cosmopolitanist-deliberative framework. This can potentially become a useful framework for guiding a process of defamiliarisation and for supporting the knowledge, skills, values, and attitudes of students in the Global South towards realising the values of GCE.