Global citizenship education within virtual global engagement: Ethical challenges and possibilities

Abstract This case study considers the ethical challenges faced by programme developers leading a virtual engagement programme aimed at developing global citizenship that reaches from the university to communities around the world. The programme is IGlobal, which was launched by the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign’s College of Education during the COVID-19 pandemic as a virtual replacement for teach abroad programming. It is a virtual global engagement project that links participants from over 20 countries spanning the Global North and Global South. Applying the framework for ethical global citizenship education (EGCE) proposed by Emiliano Bosio and Hans Schattle, this qualitative study used interviews, focus group discussions, document analysis and programme observation to consider the ways in which the framework can guide practice and illuminate particular challenges in global community engagement, as well as the areas that the framework may not reach. Since the focus was on the programme developers’ experience, the pupils being taught through the IGlobal programme were not themselves surveyed for this case study. The author’s analysis reveals the challenges of ethical virtual global engagement as well as the value of the framework for addressing these challenges. The article discusses the implications for ethical international university-to-community engagement, internationalisation at home, and virtual programming.