Teaching world mindedness in Social Studies classrooms in primary schools in Botswana: reality or illusion?

Abstract

The need to teach global perspectives in schools has heightened with the proliferation of information sharing technologies and the growing interconnectedness of world systems, hence, the suggestion that if social studies is to do better in the preparation of global citizens for the future it has to pay attention to global perspectives. The purpose of this study was to interrogate the social studies teachers’ views and experiences in teaching about the world in upper classes in primary schools in Botswana. For its framework, this study uses Hanvey’ (1976) five dimensions of global education popularly known as “An attainable global perspective”. This study was anchored within the naturalistic inquiry paradigm and used qualitative methods to collect data. Data were analyzed inductively through grounded theory techniques. The findings of this study indicated that social studies teachers teach about the world from a “Motswana” worldview. The conclusion drawn from these findings is that these teachers believe that teaching about Botswana is more of a priority than teaching about the world and their discussion on world issues is based on how those issues affect them as a country and a people. Therefore, the development of world mindedness in social studies classrooms remains an illusion rather than a reality. The study recommends that teacher education both pre-service and in-service revisit their curriculum in an effort to incorporate mega trends in social studies and global education and its pedagogies.