In Slovenia, Skinner (2012) conducted semi-structured interviews with teachers and headteachers in two secondary schools to enquire into their perceptions of global education. What she found was that although GCED is not explicitly included in the curriculum in Slovenia, teachers had a reasonable understanding of the premises of global education, and they also had a positive attitude towards bringing the global perspective to their subjects. They also felt that including the global dimension in class was done “intuitively and was part of being a good teacher”. As one of them put it, “being a teacher is trying to teach them to be responsible grown-ups sooner or later, not just to teach them maths or whatever your subject is” (p. 48). Many teachers equated global education with 21st-century quality education. Apart from the transformative nature of GCED, they also praised it for its social justice dimension and its “active and critically reflective approaches” (p. 48). Although most teachers spoke highly of the concept of global education, they also highlighted that it is often difficult to deal with global issues and involve students in active learning “due to time constraints and the quantity of curriculum material to cover” (p. 59). They also noted that “the school system is creating pupils who can reproduce a lot of knowledge but without the skills to know how to apply [it] and make it relevant to everyday life”, and they felt that GCED can be a tool for bridging that “theoretical-practical gap” (p. 68).

In her case study, Guo (2014) attempted to gain a deeper understanding of 45 Canadian pre-service teachers’ views on GCED during an Educating for Global Citizenship course that she taught. She found that although the candidates recognized the significance and their responsibility in nurturing global citizens, they “reported limited understanding of and experiences with global citizenship education” (p. 8). The participants also indicated that although they had encountered “teachable moments” (p. 8) connected to themes of GCE, they could not fully exploit these moments given their lack of ability and proper training to do so. However, during the course, they “gained new understandings of global citizenship education” (p. 10) and by the end of the course, all teacher candidates had reported that “they could incorporate GCE topics in teaching practices” (p. 11) no matter what their subject matter was. Among the benefits of GCED, they mentioned its “allowance of creativity and deviation from a typical curriculum” (p. 11) and also its ability to serve as “an impetus to become knowledgeable in global issues and current affairs and getting creative with the given curriculum” (p. 12). Finally, they also voiced their needs related to implementing GCED: they felt that they would need more practice-oriented professional development courses and more resources to successfully incorporate the global dimension.

In Israel, Goren and Yemini (2017) interviewed 15 teachers teaching in secular Jewish schools in Tel Aviv about their perceptions of GCE. As there is no mention of GCE in formal curricula, teachers agreed that “their own motivation and perceptions of their roles played a key part in the extent to which they introduced GCE-related contents in their classrooms” (p. 18). All the participating teachers saw themselves as “agents of GCE” and all of them believed that it is their responsibility to prepare students “to function in a global society” (p. 18). They also noted that while they felt committed to GCE, they were “highly sceptical that all teachers would be inclined to incorporate it”, especially in schools lacking resources (p. 18). One participant pointed out that in the end, “it all depends on the teacher. I think global citizenship is important, so I bring it into my classroom (p. 18)”. Goren and Yemini claim that teacher agency can become problematic “if the curriculum does not actively include global citizenship and its themes [and] the extent of GCE introduced into the classroom depends on teachers themselves” (p. 18). According to them, these findings strongly suggest that GCE should be addressed in teacher education to raise trainees’ awareness and develop their pedagogical skills to deal with controversial issues; and a proper policy in this regard should also be created in Israel.

Başarir (2017) aimed to explore the perceptions of 13 English instructors teaching at Turkish universities regarding the integration of GCE into ELT courses. Three of the participating instructors stated that they felt they had no role in preparing students to become global citizens; however, 10 of them said that they had a responsibility to either act as an informer (n = 6) or as a role model (n = 4) for their students. But only five participating teachers claimed that they deliberately incorporated the global dimension in their lessons, by setting up discussions about global issues, reading about global issues and reflecting global citizenship in their own behaviour. The rest of the participants stated that GCE was “irrelevant” in English lessons (p. 417). All the participants claimed that the “current ELT curriculum they were following did not educate students as global citizens” (p. 418). As Başarir (2017) concludes, the results clearly show “the lack of knowledge of the participants about the topic” and that teachers who are “unaware of their role and responsibilities in the development of global citizenship in their students reflect their ideas into their classroom practices” (p. 420). Finally, she states that it would be useful to organise in-service training on the incorporation of GCE to effectively help teachers nurture global citizens.

In the Hungarian context, Divéki (2020) conducted a pilot study on four university EFL teacher trainers’ views on global competence development. Based on the findings, it seems that EFL teacher trainers have a “reasonable understanding of global competence” (p. 105), especially the skills and attitudes students need to become global citizens, but they are not entirely sure about what the knowledge component entails. The participants unanimously agreed that global competence development is important and that they have an essential role in developing their students’ global competence as educators in an EFL teacher training programme. Their most important task, in their view, is to bring into the classroom global content to encourage their students to think, formulate and express their opinion. In addition, they also believe that they need to act as role models of global citizens to nurture the future generation of global citizens.

Even though most of the above-mentioned studies were based on qualitative data collected from small samples of participants and were carried out in very different contexts among teachers with different levels of teaching experience, it is possible to identify some recurring themes. In most cases, the findings suggest that if teachers understand the main premises of global education, they tend to find it important. It seems that whether the global dimension is explicitly included in the main curriculum or not does not necessarily influence teachers’ perception of the importance of GCE (Goren & Yemini, 2017). The perceived benefits of GCE include learning about global issues and being able to use learner-centred methodologies (Divéki, 2020; Guo, 2014; Skinner, 2012). However, many participating teachers in these studies expressed their concerns about their insufficient training to deal with these issues in class, their lack of knowledge about global issues, the lack of support from educational stakeholders, the student’s lack of interest in these issues and time constraints (Başarir, 2017; Guo, 2014; Skinner, 2012). Whether teachers incorporate the global perspective or not, mostly depends on teacher agency, for it is the teachers who effectively act as educational gatekeepers, just as Thornton (1991) put it. Initial teacher training seems to play a significant role in this decision making, as trainees who have received training in dealing with global issues tend to have a better understanding of the global dimension and feel more confident about incorporating GCE themes in their lessons (Guo, 2014).