Mediating the world: development, education and global citizenship

Academic debate around transnational concepts such as globalization and development has not been matched by interrogation of their public roles in the 'North'. Despite this, a range of governmental policies are emerging in the UK focused on engendering global citizenship and educating about 'global' and 'development' issues. This paper explores the connections between discourses of development and citizenship. Focusing particularly on the roles of International Non-Governmental Development Organizations (NGDOs) in engendering understanding of development it explores the processes of mediation within and outside NGDOs that shape this understanding and hence the possibilities for global citizenship that follow. For development is much more than just a socio-economic endeavour; it is a perception which models reality, a myth which comforts societies, and a fantasy which unleashes passions. (Sachs, 1992a, pp. 1-2)