Ubuntu: An African Moral Ethic to Advance a Critical Democratic Global Citizenship Education

This article explores the African moral ethic of Ubuntu as a potential model to advance a critical democratic global citizenship education for formal K-12 education. While neoliberal and conflict discourses offer competing conceptions of global citizenship education (GCE), there is growing interest in a decolonial approach from the critical theoretical camp to disrupt the GCE status quo and to implement more empowering ways of being. Ubuntu (humanity/humanness), a non-Western epistemology, is brought into conversation with Freire’s process of conscientization to pose a GCE praxis for formal schooling focused on critical consciousness and power, recognition and respect, and agency and empowerment.