https://doi.org/10.1177/1746197919833381
Education, Citizenship and
Social Justice
1–14
© The Author(s) 2019
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DOI: 10.1177/1746197919833381
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Global citizenship education: The
case of Equipo Pueblo’s Citizen
Diplomacy Program in Mexico
Antonio Alejo [GQ: 1]
Instituto Galego de Analise e Documentación Internacional, Spain
Abstract
Globalization processes create the need to rethink how citizens participate in complex and interdependent
societies. The purpose of this article is to understand how education-related non-governmental organizations
in Americas are becoming increasingly transnational in a globalized world through the experience of Mexican
non-governmental organization Equipo Pueblo. Following this purpose, I seek to contribute to the study
of international education facing non-governmental organizations through activism involved in citizenship
education. I argue that non-governmental organizations are potential agents for ordinary citizens to
promote non-formal education by participation on global public arenas becoming an important non-formal
learning experience beyond schools, which allows those citizens to acquire the necessary skills for effective
participation in globalized policy processes. To give empirical evidence to my research, I analyze Equipo
Pueblo’s Citizen Diplomacy Program and its influence repertoire that enable citizens’ participation in public
spaces, as example of non-formal citizenship education in the context of global politics.
Keywords
Citizen Diplomacy, global citizenship education, global politics, Mexico, non-governmental organizations,
transnational activism
Introduction
Globalization processes are expanding and deepening. Global connectivity infrastructure (Khanna,
2016) and the evolution of the complex global financial system (Sassen, 2015) are two examples
of the expansion of globalization dynamics. Despite recent reactions to these global transforma-
tions, such as groups defending their national interests and patriotic values (e.g. UK Brexit vote,
US election of President Trump, and right-wing action in Europe), these nationalist political reac-
tions will not stop the development of global processes if we observe the growing and consolida-
tion of a global plutocracy and the deepening of a global multidimensional inequality around the
globe (Brown, 2016; Fraser, 2017; Milanovic, 2016; Sassen, 2015; Skocpol and Heltel-Fernández,
Corresponding author:
Antonio Alejo, Instituto Galego de Analise e Documentación Internacional, Ronda de Outeiro 30 4, 15006 A Coruña, Spain.
Email: alejoaj@gmail.com[AQ: 1]
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