“Global Citizenship” is an idealistic concept — not a legal reality. GlobalEd’s definition of the term emphasizes the citizenship part of the term global citizenship. In reality, no one is a global citizen, because no one is legal citizen of the world. However, elite status given to certain individuals and groups, such as Americans and Europeans, allows those groups to act as global citizens and be globally mobile.
Such a definition also allows those elite groups to hopefully recognize their privilege and to understand the adverse or forced global citizenship of other groups, such as migrant workers, refugees, asylum seekers, and immigrants. It also may lead to deeper understandings of legal definitions of citizenship, which have often protected elites.
