Global Citizenship and Intercultural Skills

Our faculty has participated in ongoing training sessions focussed on intercultural skill development and exploring the complex issue of diversity. This has led to important work on better understanding how to recognize and respond to microaggressions, and how we establish and maintain a culture of openness and inclusion more intentionally. Our senior leadership team has also participated in a book study where we ready and analyzed issues and strategies from Erin Meyer’s The Culture Gap. Finally, we have established a DEI working group that is providing direction for further growth in this area, including the review and updating of our working definition for global citizenship.

Our students are engaging in Global Citizenship through a variety of intentional practices. We have introduced a Global Experiential Learning (GEx) programme for all students in grades 7-10, which includes planned emphasis on specific United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. These learning opportunities are also developed to ensure students have practical opportunities to use and apply global citizenship skills which are taught in pre-planning sessions. We are also supporting student awareness in this area through the support of various co-curricular activities, and school-wide events. Our grade 12 student board has used this topic as a framework for discussions this year as a means of tackling the broader issue of how to ensure the community is increasingly inclusive.

Goal: Our goal is to ensure that students, staff and parents continue to show growth against the Global Citizenship outcomes so that, ultimately, our school community is increasingly inclusive.

Evaluation: Our annual stakeholder survey (which is administered to students, parents, alumni and faculty) already includes specific questions related to global citizenship and DEI awareness. We will be using the results of this annual survey to assess growth and impact in this area.

Contact: Martin Jones (mjones@mulgrave.com)