Current global concerns over refugees, immigration, conflicts, and violent extremism would suggest we still have work to do when it comes to the promotion of understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial and religious groups. The inclusion of (a) Global Citizenship Education (GCED) targets and (b) official indicators (UNESCO 2017) for measuring progress towards the mainstreaming of GCED into teacher education represents a collective response for addressing these global concerns. While GCED is present in the curriculum of many countries, researchers (UNESCO 2017) report it is less likely to be included in teacher education. This absence may explain, in part, why the United Nations (2012) identified a lack of teacher capacity as a major barrier to progress towards the mainstreaming of GCED. Unless GCED capacity building becomes part of a teacher education core-curriculum, these global concerns will continue. The authors provide the reader with an overview of preliminary inquiries into piloting of GCED capacity building activities with teacher education candidates. The analysis of these activities serves as a contribution to the existing literature on strategies teacher educators can use to develop pre-service teachers to nurture core cognitive dimensions of GCED and disseminate these strategies for use by their P-12 colleagues.