Research

A founding object of CISV International is to contribute, through research, to a science of international relations. For CISV’s founder, Dr Doris T. Allen, research was an integral part of CISV from the beginning. The first CISV programme, now called Village, built on her knowledge as a developmental psychologist and aimed at reducing children’s cultural stereotypes before they would harden.

Adults accompanying the first children were encouraged to reflect on their experiences, document them, and to attempt to distill general learning points and recommendations – in short to engage in applied research.

CISV has since continued its involvement in research. Thereby we can incorporate scientific knowledge into our best practice as well as contribute to scholarly literature and debates. Contributing to research is also essential for increasing CISV’s visibility and educational credibility and attracts academics and professionals in the field to our work.

We are currently supporting the following research projects:

The production of Global Citizenship: An ethnographic study into how global citizenship is produced in an non-formal education environment; with Northumbria University, United Kingdom.

Want to Carry Out a CISV Research Project?

CISV International is always interested in starting new, high quality research projects. If you are interested and in a position to carry out a research study, please follow the required steps:

1. Write a research proposal: Write down what you want to research, justify why you chose your specific topic, and explain how you want to go about it.
  > If you are a CISV volunteer and you want to initiate a research project to improve your area of work in CISV, please use the INTERNAL Research Proposal Form
  > If you want to initiate a research project as part of your university studies or as part of your work as a researcher, please use the EXTERNAL Research Proposal Form

Submit the proposal: Together with your research proposal, please submit a completed Research Declaration Form. We have a formal process for the approval of research projects in place, which you should follow. Please send your two completed forms to research.proposal@cisv.org.

Research proposals can address any topic of relevance to CISV. We are currently interested in research on:

Global citizenship – What does it mean and how do we educate future global citizens?
Age-appropriate experiential learning – How do we tailor our educational activities to the age ranges of different CISV programmes?

Recent Research Projects

Recent research conducted by CISVers has addressed the following questions and topic areas:

Do Step Up participants practice civic engagement skills during their programme? Margrethe Seljenes identifies the main themes behind youth participation, empowerment, and civic engagement in a Step Up programme and discusses the different ways that youth engage.
- Executive summary

Forms of decision making in CISV: Are we living up to our participative ideals? Read research by Claudio Baraldi
- Executive summary
How do youth self-assess their learning achievements through a CISV Summer Camp (now Step Up)? Read Jennifer Watson’s research
- Executive summary
- Full text research of PhD dissertation.

How can adults be effective interpreters for children in CISV Villages? Read Claudio Baraldi’s research

How useful are CISV’s educational resources for programme improvement? Read Jennifer Watson’s research
- Executive summary
- Full report
Why we should increase children’s participation. Read about research by Claudio Baraldi

What is global citizenship? Read about research by Caecilia van Peski

How well does CISV’s train-the-trainer system work? Read Chuck Catania’s research
- Executive summary
- Full report

Can we measure an increase in intercultural sensitivity in participants of international service learning? by Tamara Thorpe
- Executive summary

How does the intercultural understanding of CISV participants develop over time? by Jennifer Watson
- Executive summary
- Full report

Does learning from the world help youth to lead in their community? by Tamara Thorpe
- Executive summary
- Full report

What intercultural learning occurs in a CISV Village? by Yan Jiang
- Full report

Research Partners

CISV International works with Professor Matt Baillie Smith and Dr Darryl Humble from the Department of Social Sciences, Northumbria University. Matt is director of the Northumbria Centre for International Development. We share a keen interest in global citizenship and in how organizations such as CISV can provide a space for actually living, doing or practicing global citizenship.

CISV International educationalists work closely with Professor Claudio Baraldi, director of the Research Centre on Peace and Sustainability at University of Modena and Reggio Emilia. Research by Baraldi and CISVers has studied peace education and intercultural communication and conflict resolution with a focus on children, often in collaboration with other researchers linked to CISV, and using CISV programmes as case studies.

Professor Zhu Hua teaches applied linguistics and communication at Birkbeck, University of London. She has carried out a number of research projects on interculturality and lingua franca communication in CISV programmes and has supervised research on dissemination of CISV International’s educational materials 2010–2013.

Historic Research Publications

CISV International published its own research journal, Interspectives, between 1981 and 2004. Read more about CISV-related research: