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The aspects of global citizenship, education and diversity are framing a paradigm that encapsulates how education can develop the knowledge, skills, values and attitudes of learners needed for securing a world which is more just, peaceful, tolerant, inclusive, secure and sustainable. The determination of students’ attitudes toward global citizenship education and diversity is a phenomenal issue of the past several decades. This study aims to develop an attitude scale to quantify the attitudes of students, the content of courses and instructors toward global citizenship education and diversity.

In this study, the factor structure and internal consistency of “Global Citizenship Education and Diversity Scale” (GCEDS) were analyzed, and validity and reliability of the scale were assessed. Two sample groups of participants were used in the assessment of the scale. The first sample group (exploratory factor analysis group) was composed of 147, and the second group (confirmatory factor analysis [CFA] group) was composed of 257 undergraduate students from three different large public universities in Turkey.

CFA confirmed the structure that emerged in the explanatory factor analysis. In this context, “GCEDS” is a valid and reliable scale.

This paper investigates and reports on the study abroad experiences of 22 teacher candidates from the Southeast region of the USA (n=22). The purpose of this paper is to examine the teacher candidates’ development of social and emotional learning through their international teaching experiences.

The study is framed by Critical Cosmopolitan Theory, which is a theoretical lens for a critical understanding of the development of global competencies for critical consciousness. The paper uses a case study research design (Yin, 2008), which included data collected via artifact analysis, participant interviews and participant observation through field notes.

The study found how the study abroad and international teaching experiences were instrumental in aiding in the teacher candidates’ social and emotional learning. This included the adoption of culturally responsive teaching practices, development of reading the world and enactment of taking action to rewrite the world.

One of the limitations is the relatively small sample size. This is due, in part, to the high cost associated with study abroad. The high cost of study abroad can be a barrier for students to access the cross-cultural experiences afforded by study abroad. The hefty price tag of study abroad often limits the number of teacher candidates at public institutions who can go on study abroad (Malewski and Phillion, 2009). A future research agenda is needed about ways to help off-set the costs in order to make study abroad more affordable and equitable.

The practical implications of this paper are that it provides an instructive lens for how to integrate social and emotional learning within a study abroad experience. At the same time, the paper connects socio-emotional learning (SEL) with the development of global competencies and global citizenship.

The social implications relate to the practical implications in that the paper illustrates how SEL is connected to the development of global citizenship development. The study weds the critical cosmopolitan framework with SEL to show how learners develop empathy through reading and rewriting the world.

The case study presented in this paper highlights the possibilities of study abroad in tandem with international teaching experiences to help prepare teachers with SEL features like fostering empathy, developing culturally responsive practices, and becoming critically conscious and cosmopolitan. The study fills a gap in the literature regarding the development of SEL among elementary education teacher candidates through study abroad and international teaching experiences.