Implementing GCED in teacher training should start with focusing on teacher educators and providing them with the professional development opportunities they would need to develop a global mindset and acquire the methodological repertoire they could model for their trainees. Bourn et al. (2017) state that part of the problem is that focusing on global citizenship education and education for sustainable development (ESD) themes can be “limited and ad hoc”, as “motivated and enthusiastic teacher educators are more likely to introduce global themes” (p. 55); and given that these tutors are usually autonomous in their topic choices, those who are not globally minded may not even deal with GCED in their courses. Faculty buy-in (i.e., engagement and willingness to support the initiative) seems to be one of the “cornerstones” of the implementation of global education in universities (Green, 2013, p. 12), thus, it is worth putting emphasis on providing continuous professional support and incentives (Landorf & Doscher, 2013) to teacher educators in such endeavours. According to Ferreira and her colleagues (2007), implementing GCED/ESD in teacher education would only be possible using systematic approaches: identifying and engaging key stakeholders (e.g., teacher educators, members of faculties of teacher training institutes, professional organizations, NGOs, etc.) and doing action research “to effect multidimensional change” (p. 238). Bourn et al. (2017) and Tarozzi (2020) also believe that multiple stakeholders in collaboration should support teachers in becoming more aware of the “social, cultural and environmental relevance and impact of what they teach” (Bourn et al., 2017, p. 55) and developing their global mindedness; and they also assert that teachers should develop themselves and seek opportunities to improve their understanding of GCED and learn about its practical applications.

Based on the literature (Ferreira et al., 2007; Schugurensky & Wolhuter, 2020; Yemini et al., 2019), incorporating GCED in teacher education can certainly happen in various ways, depending on the efforts of individual teachers or teacher trainers and the context they work in (Bourn et al., 2017). In their critical analysis of literature on GCED in teacher training, Yemini et al. (2019) highlight that GCED appears in teacher education programs as an elective subject (21%) or as the component of a core subject (17%) or integrated as a cross-curricular perspective in the courses (9%). Bourn and his colleagues (2017) also report on specific modules relating to GCED being available in some countries (e.g., in Australia, Canada, the United States and the UK). From Tarozzi’s (2020) investigation into nine teacher training programmes in four European countries (i.e., Austria, Czech Republic, Ireland, and Italy), it becomes clear that there are differences in teaching approaches as well. Based on the data he gathered, he labelled teacher trainers’ pedagogical narratives as (1) content-based approaches (i.e., transmissive, teacher-centred, factual); (2) value-based approaches (i.e., transformative, promoting engagement and teacher agency) and (3) competence-based approaches (i.e., focusing on knowledge, skills, attitudes one needs to become a global citizen). Even though the competence-based approach emerged as the most popular one from the responses, Tarozzi (2020) argues that the value-based approach should take precedence in initial teacher training as it would empower trainees as agents of change, which would, in turn, facilitate GCED policy enactment in schools.

Little has been written about the practicalities of implementing GCED in teacher training, especially in low-resource contexts. Kopish’s (2017) analysis of the literature on GCED in teacher training identifies three emerging practices: (1) Engaging trainees in international and cross-cultural experiences; (2) including diverse content and multiple perspectives to engage trainees in critical inquiries; and (3) creating authentic opportunities for teacher candidates to take action on issues related to global citizenship. However, in more disadvantaged contexts, teacher trainers’ attempts to engage their teacher trainees in cross-cultural experiences (usually by engaging in intercultural service-learning activities or fieldwork abroad) (Byram et al., 2021; Kaçar & Fekete, 2021; Lázár, 2015) are likely to be hindered by the lack of resources and support from different stakeholders. In contexts like these, Wiksten (2020) proposes a global education curriculum framework that is responsive to local contexts, and which also builds on these previous models and incorporates the OECD Global Competence Framework. The three main principles of the curriculum are as follows:

Considering the difficulty of changing mindsets and affecting lasting change in higher education (Harris & Lázár, 2011; Ferreira, 2007), Goodwin (2019) proposes a four-dimension approach to incorporating GCED into teacher education. According to her, nurturing a global mindset in teachers and teacher trainers is an important first step so that they understand and see through the “mercilessness” of global capitalism and “neoliberal free-market economies” and “reclaim their critical role in nurturing young people and future world citizens who are thoughtful, discerning, empathetic and empowered” (p. 5). She distinguishes between four major dimensions of nurturing a global mindset: the curricular, professional, moral, and personal dimensions. The curricular dimension means more than content integration, it entails the idea of culturally relevant and responsive teaching, preparing teacher trainees to work equitably and more effectively with culturally diverse students. Moreover, it entails “thinking about content, histories and perspectives beyond local and national boundaries, beyond the students in the room, and beyond place-based or geographically bounded socio-political issues” (p. 6). The global mindset encourages teachers to create lessons that are guided by larger philosophical, political, cultural, and existential questions to make students enquire into problems of power, knowledge, meaning, and identity using a global lens, and emphasising the interconnectedness of the world. The professional dimension is responsive to what it means to be a teacher in the 21st century. Even though teaching is seen as a low-status job in many parts of the world, resulting in low teacher salaries, and teacher bashing and blaming, teachers as key players in education are “instrumental to national development and economic growth” (p. 6). Being part of a global community of about 84 million (Roser, 2017), teachers (including university instructors) should learn how to advocate for their rights, how to demand better working conditions and uplift their profession in the eyes of their communities. Teacher trainers should encourage learners to think about and redefine what professionalism means in teaching, and they make them reflect on notions such as collective agency, advocacy, and communal power. Concerning the moral dimension, Goodwin (2019) asserts that work on humanity and social action should be placed at the heart of teacher training. The main task of teacher trainers should be developing global solidarity in their trainees and forwarding the moral agenda of being inextricably linked to our fellow human beings. Finally, she believes that teacher preparation programmes should become safe places where teacher trainers and trainees deal with moral issues in connection with teaching. Goodwin (2019) regards the fourth, the personal dimension of the global mindset as the most challenging one to work on, as it involves self-work: “self-reflection, interrogation and evaluation” (p. 8). She posits that teacher trainers and trainees should endeavour to critically examine their own beliefs, perceptions and values concerning global issues and globalisation and concerning teaching, learning and the learners. Goodwin (2019) admits that confronting our long-held truths is never easy and it can be uncomfortable, however, teacher training programs must provide a safe space for trainees to do such hard work.

Even though implementing innovations may be a lengthy and arduous process, the exposure-persuasion-identification-commitment (EPIC) model (Aragón et al., 2017) sheds light on the way successful and long-lasting implementation may be made possible, in four successive stages. First, teachers should be (1) exposed to the given teaching practice: in the case of GCED, they should experience GCED-related activities first hand, and they should be made aware of what GCED is. Then, they should be (2) persuaded that the use of new teaching practice is “a great idea” (p. 205): in this case, they should see the value in GCED-related practices (e.g., be convinced of their usefulness, understand their own role in the implementation). In Aragón and her colleagues’ (2016) study, the stage of persuasion turned out to be the most important predictor of the adoption of changes in tertiary level educators’ practice. The third stage of adoption is (3) identification: educators should feel that the new practice is congruent with their teaching identity; in the case of GCED, they should feel that GCED methodologies and the characteristics required for becoming globally competent teachers are compatible with their teaching approaches. The penultimate stage to implementation is (4) commitment: instead of regarding the adoption of GCED-related practices as sheer experimentation, teachers should be committed to making the world a better place and adopt GCED to this end. The final stage is the (5) implementation of the new teaching practice into teachers’ methodological repertoire. In short, the EPIC model underlines the importance of embracing a teaching practice and being persuaded of its affordances for successful adoption.

Consequently, much depends on teacher education to educate globally competent teacher trainees, and such attempts should start with examining teacher trainers’ beliefs and perceptions about global education and developing their global mindsets. Even though there are many possible implementations of the global perspective in teacher training, there are some common themes in the literature: (1) the role of criticality and value-based education seems prevalent in the discourse about teacher training (Bourn et al., 2017; Tarozzi, 2020). (2) Content integration (Goodwin, 2019; Kopish, 2017; Wiksten, 2020) by bringing in global issues into different courses is a prerequisite for developing a global mindset in teacher training, however, it should also be enhanced by the right methodology and by the transmission of values, such as respect for diversity. (3) The EPIC model (Aragón et al., 2017) highlights that teacher trainees should go through the exposure-persuasion-identification-commitment phases so that eventually they are enabled to successfully implement in practice what they learnt during initial teacher training. Moreover, (4) teacher trainees should be empowered to act as agents of change (Goodwin, 2019; Wiksten, 2020) once they get into their schools, to feel capable of acting for their own and their students’ well-being and act in their best interests to prepare them for the realities of the world. Finally, (5) it seems imperative to educate teacher trainees on how to respond to context-specific challenges (Goodwin, 2019; Tarrozi, 2020; Wiksten, 2020) and make global citizenship education suitable for their students’ needs.