“It’s a Fine Line to Walk:” Rural Identity and Global Citizenship Education Gatekeeping

Despite growing calls for global education in the United States (NCSS 2016b) and the popularity of global citizenship education (GCE) programs internationally, education for global citizenship has not caught on in the United States (Rapoport, 2020). In this context, teachers wield considerable influence as curricular instructional gatekeepers. They may promote or resist GCE in individual ways in relation to the context in which they teach. Little is currently understood about the curricular gatekeeping practices of rural teachers regarding GCE (Moffa, 2020). Research that does examine rural GCE gatekeeping situates analysis in terms of the rural as a place but not necessarily the rural teaching identities of rural teachers. This study aims to develop an understanding of rural teaching identities and the extent to which those identities affect how rural teachers conceptualize and implement GCE as curricular instructional gatekeepers.

In this qualitative study, I employ instrumental case study design to answer my research questions. I bounded by case to secondary social studies teachers in one rural public school district in east Tennessee. Ultimately, my sample included three teachers. I collected response data through two sets of interviews with these teachers in which I asked about their identities, conceptualizations of GCE, and gatekeeping practices. I further asked teachers to submit an informal global citizenship lesson plan, which we discussed in interview two. I conducted analysis via provisional coding before organizing response data into themes. My analysis of findings suggests both alignment and misalignment between teacher GCE gatekeeping practices and self-reported aspects of their internal and external identities. Teachers recognize unique aspects of rural teaching; however, paradoxically, they both relate how they gatekeep for their rural students and how they reject gatekeeping for their rural context. My analysis suggests politics and race were divisive topics that teachers avoid or mediate, while teachers prioritize transmission of content knowledge and a neutral “just the facts” approach to teaching.

I conclude by discussing implications pre-service and in-service teacher preparation as well as future research into rural gatekeeping for global citizenship.