Interrogating global education programs for U.S.-based high school youth: Applying a critical cosmopolitan framework to practice

• In Event: Roundtable Session (Tuesday V)
  In Refereed Round-Table Session: Reflections on cosmopolitanism and education: Developing cosmopolitan sensibilities for a sustainable future

Proposal

In their recent article, john a. powell and Stephen Menendian write that “the problem of the twenty-first century is the problem of ‘othering’” (2016, p. 14). powell and Menendian go on to define othering as “set of dynamics, processes, and structures that engender marginality and persistent inequality across any of the full range of human differences based on group identities” (p. 17). An optimistic body of work that attempts to imagine alternatives to these realities is the literature on cosmopolitanism. By raising questions about the interplay between the local and global, cosmopolitanism contends with identity, membership, belonging, and ways of being in a world where modes of interconnection and interaction with difference have multiplied (Nussbaum, 1997; Silverstone, 2006; Appiah, 2006; Kurasawa, 2004; Hull, Stornaiuolo & Sahini, 2010; Hansen, 2010; Hull & Stornaiuolo, 2014; Go, 2013; Robbins & Lemos Horta, 2017; Calhoun, 2017). Though widely written about in theory, the empirical application of cosmopolitanism remains limited. This study attempts to bridge theorizations of cosmopolitanism—more specifically critical cosmopolitanism—with global education practice.

In the United States in the realm of education practice, many global education organizations are designing programs for U.S.-based youth to travel abroad, learn about different cultures, engage in service learning, and develop a sense of global responsibility. There is an increasing focus on travel to “developing” countries. While these programs situate themselves in the fields of global education/global citizenship education which emphasize learning about the world “out there,” a critical cosmopolitan frame offers a perhaps more nuanced approach. More specifically, critical cosmopolitanism complicates global education/global citizenship education in two distinct ways. One, cosmopolitanism emphasizes the interplay between the local and the global in a way where one informs the other (Stornaiuolo, Hull & Hall, in press; Rizvi, 2009; Bender, 2017; Beck & Snaider, 2006). Two, the sub-field of critical cosmopolitanism—the guiding theoretical framework for this presentation—calls attention to power and the historical roots of injustice (such as various forms of colonialism, slavery, etc.; Mignolo, 2000, Go, 2013, Robbins, 2017; Bender, 2017).

Through the study of a Bay Area-based global education program, I attempted to locate notions of critical cosmopolitanism within this existing global education practice. I attempted to understand the program’s structures and practices that did or did not facilitate the development of students’ critical cosmopolitan dispositions. The following questions guided my study:
-How are notions of critical cosmopolitanism at work in a global education organization?
-What are the program’s structures and practices that support and/or thwart the development of students’ critical cosmopolitan dispositions?

In this qualitative study, I focus on the two aforementioned traits of critical cosmopolitanism: 1) the interplay between the local and the global and 2) power and historical roots of injustice. Through the lens of these themes, I discuss students’ experiences and make recommendations for programmatic improvement, including closer attention to the historical roots of injustice, a more complex analysis of development, and better support for students having distinct race-related experiences abroad.

Author

• Daniele Fogel, student