A World of Difference

Today’s students need to be both globally and digitally literate as they use technology to work and interact with culturally and geographically diverse people. In addition, students need to understand critical literacy in order to counter hegemony in the world and interact with others in socially responsible ways. The mission of the chapter will be (a) to explain the logistics of how a rural junior high team learned critical, digital and global citizenship while conducting project-based learning on global hunger and (b) to explain the successes and challenges teachers perceived when conducting the project-based learning on a global social justice topic in their rural context. The framework for this chapter builds upon cosmopolitan theory, global teaching model, and project-based inquiry model to form the Glocal Teaching Model. Glocal combines the words local and global to signify that social justice education includes both local and global issues. The Global Teaching Model is made up of four dimensions: situated practice, integrated global learning, critical literacy instruction, and intercultural experiences. This model describes an array of teaching practices that promote critical global citizenship.