Narrative Inquiry on Global Citizenship through International Volunteering Experiences

This study examines the potential of global citizenship education that cultivates global citizenship. The starting point of this study is to first understand the multi-layered and declarative concept of global citizenship in context. Another purpose is to propose international volunteering as a practical project of global citizenship education. This is to improve the ineffective education method of global citizenship education from its limited method and target. To this end, this study explores the experience of an ethnic minority activist who engaged in international volunteering in Laos by documenting her personal narrative. The narrative analysis was carried out by using the three scopes specified by Yunjin Lee and Namsuk Kim (2020), who derived the concept of global citizenship from the experience of civic activities in the local community. Through discussion, the narrative inquiry shows us 3 stages of global citizenship that 1) self perception and willing to change, 2) the process of forming self-worth for voluntary practice, and 3) inclusive understanding of other cultures, and the three scopes ‘perception of reality and willingness to change’, ‘critical reflection and practice’, and ‘universal humanitarianism’ can be understood as a process stage of cultivating global citizenship, not an independent concept. In addition, by confirming that global citizenship can be cultivated through international volunteering, it provides the basis that international volunteering can be proposed as a practical project of global citizenship education.