Purpose: This article challenges the outsiders' views on European school social science adopting genuine cosmopolitan views, when globalisation is treated in social science classrooms. Method: The article is based on the theoretical framework of educational governance analysis and on qualitative corpus analysis of representative German Laenders' social science curricula from 1994-2014 (n = 13). Findings: The article highlights tendencies of renationalisation of the global learning agenda and the problematisation of democracy in contexts of globalisation studies at German schools.