ANGEL Conference 2025: Research in Global Education and Learning – for Democracy, Peace, Human Rights, Sustainability and Global Social Justice
Input by Annette Scheunpflug
GENE Chairperson | Professor at Otto-Friedrich-University Bamberg, Germany
The ANGEL Conference 2025 marked the fifth edition of the Academic Network on Global Education & Learning (ANGEL) international conferences, dedicated to advancing the discourse on Global Education and Learning. Hosted at the Humboldt Forum in Berlin from 4-6 June 2025, the conference started with the welcoming words from event partners, and initial reflections on the focus and themes of the conference.
We are together over the next days to explore research on Global Education and Learning – for Democracy, Peace, Human Rights, Sustainability, and Global Social Justice. A special emphasis will be on the transfer of research to policymakers, especially those policymakers who are responsible for global learning in formal and non-formal education – in schools, youth work, museums, theatres, adult education, early childhood education, and others.
The field of practice in Global Learning has evolved over the last 50 years, step by step reaching a broader audience, achieving higher professionalism, and increasing its outreach. From the beginning – as we found in our studies – research on global education was there as well: small, often struggling to gain recognition. Research and practice have always been intertwined – practitioners and policymakers asking for better concepts, more knowledge, and more evidence, and researchers pushing the field by making it more visible. Today, research on global education is more needed than ever.
Global education research for Democracy, Peace, Human Rights, Sustainability, and Global Social Justice is more necessary as the field has grown: Global education and learning have professionalised. Curricula have been revised for more and better global learning or are on their way. One example will be presented during this conference. Museums are offering educational programs, such as those here at the Humboldt Forum. Youth organisations are working internationally and providing mutual exchanges. Voluntary programs are becoming more popular. Teacher training programs are increasingly aware that a reflection on global sustainable development is important for future teachers. This growing field needs support through research and evidence.
Global education research for Democracy, Peace, Human Rights, Sustainability, and Global Social Justice is also needed because we now know from previous research that goodwill in this field is not enough. We have learned how activities in global learning need to be organised to foster global understanding rather than teaching paternalism and white saviour behaviour. We have learned how to teach the complexity of global developments rather than proposing easy solutions. And we have learned how to teach global issues without instilling fear and anxiety about the future, and how to empower learners to take action. All of this requires further research to be adapted to different contexts and areas of education.
We have learnt how global learning must be organised to foster genuine understanding rather than perpetuating paternalism and white saviour behaviour. We have discovered the importance of teaching the complexities of global developments instead of offering simplistic solutions, and how to address global issues without instilling fear and anxiety about the future, while empowering individuals to take action. All of this needs further research to be effectively adapted to various contexts and areas of education.
Global education research for Democracy, Peace, Human Rights, Sustainability, and Global Social Justice is also essential because this field must demonstrate evidence – evidence in response to critics, and specific evidence for those policymakers who support global learning. We are in turbulent times: wars of a new kind – and I mention only the one often forgotten in the Democratic Republic of Congo – and I particularly greet our participants from this region. The climate crisis is intensifying. We live in times in which human rights are being challenged and all kinds of minorities are under threat. Global education research shows evidence that these activities lead to learning about global understanding and social justice. To become even more solid in terms of evidence, we need better research – research that takes into account the complexity of learning processes, in which not every input leads to results, as outcomes are influenced by social context and learners' previous experiences. This requires strong cooperation between researchers, state-of-the-art research designs, more meta-studies, and more joint research – especially in collaboration with colleagues from the Global South.
So, enough reasons to focus on global education research and on this conference! After two conferences in London (UK), one in Oulu (Finland), and one in Paris (France), we now welcome you to Berlin at the Humboldt Forum. The Humboldt Forum is a place of entangled and complex histories of power and coloniality – in Prussia, in Germany, in Europe, and in the world. It takes the name of Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859), one of the first empirical researchers in geography and a pioneer in ecological thinking. He summarised his understanding of the world by saying “everything is systemic interaction” (“Alles ist Wechselwirkung”), and thus he is seen as one of the fathers of education for sustainable development and systems thinking. You will have several opportunities to explore the Humboldt Forum. You can find more information about it and its reflections on coloniality through the QR Code and the little booklet we sent you before the conference.
We want to come together at this conference by putting into practice the principles of global learning: mutual respect, a change of perspective, and sensitive language. This is our professional foundation.
However, sometimes discussions may not be fair, and looking back on all kinds of colonialism and power structures can be painful. If you need support, please reach out to our Awareness Team. You can find them in the plenary and at the meeting point set up for conversations about colonial legacies and their impact on education. We are very happy to have the Awareness Team with us!
The programme of this conference looks very promising. We had more than 200 abstracts sent in and carried out an intensive review process. The programme includes important keynote speakers. Two are from academia: Verónica Boix-Mansilla from Harvard and Ingrid Gogolin, former president of the European Educational Research Association and founding director of the World Educational Research Association, from the University of Hamburg. The third keynote speaker comes from the policymaking world. We are honoured that the former Minister for Foreign Affairs of New Zealand, Nanaia Mahuta, will deliver her keynote on an Indigenous Perspective towards Citizenship. We will also have a final panel with high-level speakers.
Yesterday, we already had four sessions with very interesting presentations from Early Career Researchers, and there will be many more today and tomorrow. We will also explore and learn from the Humboldt Forum and its experiences in global learning. And we will celebrate the success of the ANGEL Network, which now has more than 900 members. In the coming years, it will be important to stabilise the network, and this will be discussed during the conference.
So, a very interesting and rich programme! I wish us all two inspiring and fruitful days. May you feel inspired by the research, by the Humboldt Forum’s examples of global education, and by our keynotes. And may you feel empowered and supported knowing that others are also working on these important topics. I would be very happy if one of the outcomes of this conference were new collaborations on global learning research around the globe.
Enjoy the next two days!
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