Everyday Cosmopolitanism Within a Youth Theater Program: Cultivating Interconnections Through Cultural Creativity

• In Event: 58.083 - Roundtable Session 26
  In Roundtable Session: 58.083-7 - Culturally Responsive Schooling and Student Success

Abstract

This paper draws on data from an ethnographic study of a youth theatre program serving immigrant and non-immigrant youth to illuminate its micro-practices of “everyday cosmopolitanism”. It sheds light on the nurturing of “cosmopolitan sensibilities” and “artfulness” within day-to-day, setting-level practices of exploring culture, difference, and belonging that has the potential to disrupt the local/global binary. It significantly contributes to curriculum inquiry on the ways in which the teaching and learning activities of arts programs in community-based organizations afford youth with opportunities to nurture cosmopolitan habits of mind.

Authors

• Bic H. Ngo, University of Minnesota

• Betsy Maloney Leaf, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities