A Moral Cosmopolitan Perspective on Language Education

• In Event: Roundtable Session 13
  In Roundtable Session: Value Creation and Second Language Research: Tsunesaburo Makiguchi’s and Daisaku Ikeda’s Ideas in a Global Context

Abstract

The fourth panelist critically analyzes the Buddhist language Ikeda (e.g., 2010; see also Makiguchi, 1981-1988) uses to formulate his perspective of cosmopolitanism, and he compares Ikeda's perspective with others’ in the extant literature. This panelist concludes that Ikeda's cosmopolitanism focuses on the development of virtues for promoting moral modes of interconnectedness as ways of empowering individuals and communities. The implication is that language education from a cosmopolitan perspective should incorporate a moral cosmopolitan dimension. In recent years, scholars have turned to cosmopolitanism as a framework for thinking through issues of language and citizenship. This panelist examines Daisaku Ikeda's philosophy of cosmopolitanism as an Eastern, Buddhist perspective in the face of what Holliday (2009) calls the “Western imposition.” If we agree with Guilherme (2002, 2007), Starkey (2007), Holliday (2009) and others that language education requires a cosmopolitan vision, what should the form and purpose of this cosmopolitanism be? Ikeda’s perspective, based largely in Makiguchi’s theory of value-creating pedagogy and Buddhist philosophy, offers a new direction in the field of language and culture education.

Author

• Gonzalo Obelleiro, Teachers College, Columbia University