A place for development education in the current Spanish and English curricula: Finding possibilities for practice

Development education has a long and well-established trajectory in terms of initiatives promoted by international organizations, national governments and civil associations, accompanied by a growing awareness of the significance of global issues. Nevertheless, an analysis of the education policy reflected in the official Spanish and English curricula supports what Bourn (2015) has described as the current decline in development education. A comparative analysis of these curricula reveals interesting similarities and suggests a need for initiatives where teachers and schools take the lead in developing educational practice committed to prepare students for global citizenship. Our research project, entitled Investigating the Global Dimension of Development Education: A Pilot Study in a Galician School, was largely inspired by the work of the Global Learning Programme – England, in supporting collaborative networks to develop and implement effective teaching practices related to global issues. This participatory action research project aimed to design and put into practice a school-wide interdisciplinary teaching plan to embed development education into everyday school practice, where the teachers served as the principle designers and developers of the educational proposals. We include a section of this teaching plan to demonstrate that, despite the limited policy support, there are possibilities for incorporating development education into the existing curriculum.