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 University of 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 in the next days to explore research on Global Education and Learning – for Democracy, Peace, Human Rights, Sustainability and Global Social Justice. A special emphasise will be on the transfer on research to policy makers, especially those policy makers who are responsible for global learning in formal and non-formal education, so in schools, youth work, museums, theatres, adult education, early childhood education and others.
The field of practice in Global Learning has evolved in the last 50 years, step by step having a broader audience, higher professionalism and greater outreach. From the beginning, that what we found in our studies, research on global education was there as well – small, often with problems to get recognised. Research and practice have always been intertwined – practitioners and policy makers asking for better concepts, more knowledge and more evidence and researchers pushing the field by making it more public. Today, the research on global education is more needed than ever.
Global education research for Democracy, Peace, Human Rights, Sustainability and Global Social Justice is more needed as the field has grown: Global education and learning has professionalized. Curricula had 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 as here in the Humboldt Forum. Youth organisations are working internationally together and providing mutual exchanges. Voluntary programs are getting more popular. Teacher training programs are aware that a reflection on global sustainable development might be important for future teachers. So, this growing field needs support through research and evidence.
Global education research for Democracy, Peace, Human Rights, Sustainability and Global Social Justice is needed as well as we now know from previous research that good will in this field is not enough. We have learned from research how activities on global learning need to be organized in order to learn global understanding instead of teaching paternalism and white saviour behaviour. We have learned how to teach the complexity of global developments in the world instead of proposing easy solutions. And we have learned to teach global issues without fear and anxiety on the developments of the future and how to empower for actions. All this needs much further research to be adopted to different contexts and to different 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 needed as this field needs to show evidence – evidence against people who are criticising, and special evidence for those policymakers who support global learning. We are in turbulent times: Wars in a new dimension than before – and I mention only the one which is often forgotten in the Democratic Republic of Congo and I particularly great our participants from this region. The climate crises is increasing. We live in times in which human rights are challenged and all kind of minorities come under threat. Global education research shows the evidence that activities lead to learning on global understanding and global social justice. To become even more solid on evidence, this needs better research, seeking for evidence by having in mind the complexity of learning processes, in which not every input leads to results, however, is influenced by the social context and the previous experiences of the learners. This needs a high cooperation between researchers, research designs which are state of the art, more meta-studies and more joint research especially together with colleagues from the global south.
So, enough reasons to focus on global education research and on this conference! After two conferences in London in Great Britain, one in Oulu in Finland, one in Paris in France, now welcome 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 is a place which takes the name of Alexander von Humboldt from 1769 to 1859, one of the first empirical researchers on geography and a pioneer on ecological thinking as he resumed his knowledge on the world by saying “everything is systemic interaction” (Alles ist Wechselwirkung) and by this he is seen as one of the fathers of education for sustainable development and systems-thinking. You will have several occasions to explore the Humboldt Forum. You find more information about the Humboldt Forum and its reflection on coloniality by the QR Code and the little booklet we have send you before the conference.
We want to be together in the conference, by putting into practice the principals in Global learning on mutual respect, change of perspective and sensitive language. This is our professional basis.
However, sometimes discussions might not be fair and looking back to all kind of colonialism and power is hurting. In case you need support please address yourself to our Awareness team. You find the awareness team in the plenary and at the meeting point which we have installed for exchange about the colonial legacies and its impact on education. We are very happy to have the awareness team with us!
The program of this conference looks very promising. We had hat more than 200 abstracts send in and an intensive review process. The program has important keynote speakers. Two speakers are from academia - Verónica Boix- Mansilla from Harvard and Ingrid Gogolin, the former president of the European Educational Research Association and the founding director of the World Educational Research Association from the university of Hamburg. The third keynote speaker comes from the side of policymakers. We feel very honoured that the former Minister for Foreign Affairs of New Zealand Nanaia Mahuta will give her keynote on an Indigenous Perspective towards Citizenship. We will a final panel with high-level speakers.
We had yesterday already four sessions with very interesting presentations from Early Carrier Researchers and will have many today and tomorrow. And we will explore and learn with the Humboldt Forum and their experiences in Global Learning. And we will have a chance to celebrate the success of the ANGEL Network which has now more than 900 members. The next years to come it will be important to stabilise the network and this will be discussed during the conference. So a very interesting and rich program! I wish us all two very interesting and fruitful days. May you all feel inspired by research, by the examples of the Humboldt Forum on global education and by our keynotes. And may you feel empowered and supported by knowing that others are working as well on these important topics. And I would be very happy if one of the results of this conference would be new cooperations on global learning research around the globe. Enjoy the next two days!
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