The American View on Global Education in Curriculum and Its Necessity for Entering the Workforce

Abstract

The problem addressed in this study is the lack of globalization terminology and geography standards included in the United States’ public education system leading to a workforce that is missing key 21^st-century skill competency. According to social efficiency theory, it is important for education to teach the necessary employability skills in the school curriculum. Geography standards align with employability skills, but the subject is disappearing from United States classrooms. This quantitative regression study evaluates the predictive relationships between exposure to geography curriculum in the United States, American perception of the importance of geography, and recent high school graduate’s self-assessed employability level. Participants were graduates of public West Tennessee high schools in 2021 or 2022. A logistic regression found no significant relationship between exposure to geography and a graduate’s perception of geography. A logistic regression found no significance between exposure to geography curriculum and the graduates’ self-assessed level of employability. A multinomial logistic regression found no predictive value between the combined exposure and perception value on the self-assessed level of employability. Results indicate there may be a connection between perception level and level of employability. Education policymakers should further examine the connection between geography and employability on a larger scale, and employers should advocate for more courses that instruct their desired skills.