Educational Cosmopolitanism: Making Meaning Through Reflective Conversations

• In Event: Cosmopolitanism, Communication, and Citizenship Education

Abstract

In this presentation, I will examine how a cosmopolitan outlook might be conducive in understanding schools as important common meeting places in an otherwise increasingly fragmentized society. In accordance with Hansen (2008b), I understand a cosmopolitan approach, that is, a sensibility both for tradition and for new possibilities and global interconnectivity, as an educational orientation. The aim is to examine, from a cosmopolitan perspective, from which points of departure meaning-making conversations between different groups can take place. John Dewey (1916/2004) formulated a criterion with two elements for a democratic social life, in education and society: the extent to which the interests are shared by all its members and the extent to which there are free and full interactions with other groups and associations. From his perspective, communication constitutes the basis for all social life. The two elements can be understood as a criterion for educational criticism and construction, through asking to what extent there is free and full communication within and between different groups (Festenstein 1997). In this paper, it is first and foremost the second element which is at focus: How does communication between different groups become possible?
In the theoretical framework, I draw on Kwame Anthony Appiah’s (2005, 2007) ethical perspective on cosmopolitanism and David Hansen’s (2008a, 2008b) concept of educational cosmopolitanism. In the discussion from which point of reference communication with ‘strangers’ becomes possible, Donald Davidson’s (2001) notion of a shared world and a triangulation between one's own thoughts, others' thoughts and a common object are fruitful (Wahlström 2010). Davidson’s emphasis on a shared world is in accordance with Appiah’s (2005) claim that human beings can learn from each other’s stories only if they understand that they share a single world. According to Appiah (2007), one of the central ways to coordinate our lives with others is through language of values. Thus, conversation means to be engaged in others and others' ideas, rather than coming to a common agreement. Hansen (2008a) examines curriculum as a ‘cosmopolitan inheritance’ and pays attention to which issues the world puts forth to students today. Rizvi (2009) inquires into cosmopolitan learning, with an emphasis on the identity and the connectivity with the rest of the world. I will use the concept of educational cosmopolitanism in this broader meaning, both as curriculum as a cosmopolitan inheritance and actual intercultural meetings in classrooms.
In understanding educational cosmopolitanism as conversations on values, listening becomes the crucial point. We must, as Garrison (1996) puts it, put our own ideas at risk in listening with openness to others. A reason to take such a risk, is, according to Garrison, that we already always are vulnerable, and at risk, since we are all already members of different cultures and groups, and are already in dialogues with others, even if we perhaps are not always fully aware of it. However, in a cosmopolitan view of education, the importance of listening needs to be emphasized, and the role of the listener needs to be recognized.

Author

• Ninni Wahlstrom, Orebro University