The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals as a Global Content Framework?

Abstract

Existing research in global and social studies education has focused on methods, tools, and instruments to impart dispositions and skills for global learning, with little research pertaining to key global content knowledge. In this manuscript, authors consider the use of the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals as a prospective global content knowledge framework to impart global learning in social studies. Middle-grades Ancient World History content standards from two countries, China and the U.S., are reviewed to evaluate the degree of their alignment to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals; namely goal number 5: Gender Equality. The authors found little direct content alignment between content presented in the SDG and the reviewed content standards. Implications of this research in the consideration of global content knowledge frameworks, as well as preparing learners to live-up to the expectations of the SDGs, namely goal number five, in social studies are discussed