Conference Background

The ANGEL Conference 2025 will be the fifth of the Academic Network on Global Education & Learning's biennial international conferences on Global Education and Learning. Over the years, these conferences have grown into a crucial event for Global Education research, showcasing policy-related research work in the field and providing a platform for sharing new research and fostering collaboration among researchers, policymakers, and practitioners. Our successful 2023 event was the largest yet, held in partnership with UNESCO at their HQ in Paris. View information, and pictures, of the 2023 event here.

Hosted at the Humboldt Forum in Berlin between 4-6 June, the 2025 Conference takes the title "Research in Global Education and Learning: For Democracy, Peace, Human Rights, Sustainability, and Global Social Justice", and is designed as a major international gathering with several key objectives:

Promote dialogue between policymakers, researchers, and practitioners, encouraging reflection on the value of research for policymaking
Explore international policy frameworks and their effects on Global Education
Provide researchers with a platform to present their current work and engage in meaningful dialogue with experts and peers
Support and nurture Early Career Researchers

The Conference also aims at furthering the vision of the European Declaration on Global Education to 2050 (‘Dublin Declaration’):

"A world characterized by greater social and climate justice, peace, solidarity, equity, equality, planetary sustainability, international understanding, respect for diversity, inclusion, the realization of human rights for all, and a decent life for all, particularly the most vulnerable and excluded, both locally and globally"

Additionally, it seeks to encourage educational research aligned with the new UNESCO Recommendation on Education for Peace, Human Rights and Sustainable Development (which replaced the ‘1974 Recommendation’).

Global Education and Learning is defined in the Dublin Declaration as "education that enables people to reflect critically on the world and their place in it… empower(ing) people to understand, imagine, hope, and act to bring about a world of social and climate justice, peace, solidarity, equity and equality, planetary sustainability, and international understanding”. Global Education is an umbrella term to bring together related concepts including: Development Education, Global Citizenship Education, Education for Global Citizenship and International Solidarity, Education for Sustainable Development, Global Learning, Human Rights Education, Intercultural Education, Peace Education and Anti-racist Education.

Conference Main Focus

The conference will focus on research in the field of Global Education and Learning, with particular emphasis on its relationship to democracy, peace, human rights, sustainability and global social justice, and its importance for practice and policy.

The field of Global Education research addresses crucial current societal issues and the relationship between these issues and education and learning. Global Education research by its nature is focused on issues of social relevance. While research in the field has grown exponentially in recent years, there is still the need for a greater focus on the value of Global Education research for policymakers and practitioners. This conference will aim to address this challenge.

All submissions should clearly demonstrate their relevance to addressing societal issues, particularly in relation to the conference's main focus areas: Global Education and democracy, peace, human rights, sustainability and global social justice. Submissions should approach these themes from an educational perspective, encompassing formal, non-formal, and informal education.

The conference themes, outlined below, provide further details on these topics.

We especially encourage papers, symposiums, and workshops that address the research needs of both policymakers and practitioners, fostering reflection on the connections between research and policy, and how research findings can be effectively applied to inform and support policymaking. Submissions that explore the impact of international policy frameworks, such as the Dublin Declaration, on global education are also strongly encouraged. We welcome proposals that foster the exchange of ideas and reflection on good practices, offering valuable insights for both researchers and practitioners.

Conference Themes

The conference will also aim to highlight the importance of addressing contemporary and pressing social issues, in an educational and pedagogical perspective.

These issues include the following:

Challenges to democracy and the role and potential of Global Education within the educational system in addressing these challenges and strengthening democracy;
Challenges to peace and the role and potential of Global Education in promoting peace and conflict prevention by linking humanitarian, development and peace efforts;
The centrality of human rights, and of Human Rights Education, in Global Education;
Sustainability, planetary citizenship, climate justice, Climate Education; future-oriented education studies, including curriculum development that emphasizes access through subject-specific approaches;
Social justice, local and global: visions, understandings, and pedagogical approaches; systemic and epistemic considerations;
Varieties of Global Education - Global Citizenship Education, Education for Sustainable Development, Human Rights and Peace Education - overlaps, underlaps and the strengthening of synergies;
Decolonisation through approaches to research, how international partnerships and cultures of decolonisation are formed and how a range of voices and perspectives can be reflected in both the research process and in identifying outcomes;
Local, regional, national, continental and international approaches to policymaking in Global Education;
Global Education in teacher education or training;
Research-based innovation in Global Education: Addressing future challenges and incorporating digitalisation, while navigating the trade-offs with AI.

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