Association for Interdisciplinary Studies 2025 Conference, Oulu, FI

Workshop Abstract:

Considerable research has gone into various aspect of changemaker education, such as global citizenship education, sustainability and sustainable development education, peace and conflict transformation education, and diversity education (to include multicultural education, diversity-equity-inclusion education and its variants), but the field lacks a holistic understanding of the ways in which these areas of educational change intertwine. This workshop offers an exploratory analysis of intersecting discourses present in global changemaker education, using multimodal artistic, affective, and discursive analysis frameworks. The workshop will explore the layered challenges of institution-level change initiatives. Taking inspiration from the applied work of Pashby et al. (2020) to delineate the different discourses of neoliberal, liberal, and critical orientations to Global Citizenship Education (GCE), and the work of Sara Ahmed (2014) on how emotions stick to discourses, this workshop explores the multiple manifestations of these discourses within specific institutions. Changemaker education is generating considerable international and interdisciplinary interest, claiming resources, and likely to increase in influence as European-derived modern colonial infrastructures engage contemporary global challenges. This multimodal exploration of entangled discourses offers insight into areas for continued development and mission-vision concordance in changemaker institutions.