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16 REfLECTIvE COsMOPOLITANIsM
This last characterization of cosmopolitanism as a method and process is especially
helpful in understanding cosmopolitan engagement as an educational ideal. It is to see cos-
mopolitanism as an orientation, a way of negotiating the world, rather than as a concrete
identity.8
The promise of philosophical inquiry in a community of inquiry, then, lies in its embodi-
ment of this cosmopolitan ideal. It provides an educational method for generating âa social
reality of immanent possibilitiesâ through which students are able to develop the capacity
to reflect in a critical, creative, and caring way on the multiple, fluid, and interactive nature
of the social reality in which they live. Through such activity, children are able to reconstruct
society as a new form of cosmopolitan community in which those at risk of exclusion belong
as full members, and through which all children can reconstruct their identities through a
transaction between self, other, and world based on a âreflective loyalty to the known and
openness to the new.â
By approaching cosmopolitanism as an orientation and method, the center-periphery
model of society is also transformed. Diversity is no longer on the outside, and commonal-
ity on the inside, whereby âdifferenceâ places you at risk of exclusion. Once society is seen
as a set of interactions rather than a defined space, then âoccupyingâ the public realm can
be reconfigured to signify multiple overlapping spheres of engagement â this in turn means
the social whole will be constituted by multiple overlapping social spheres or communities,
and that hybrid complex of multiply-informed identities are the norm. Global forces interact
with local forces in a way that will be multiple and overlapping with permeable and fuzzy
â âno clear lines can be drawn between inside and outside, the internal and the externalâ.9
boundaries, and individual and group identities will be mixed and overlapping rather than
homogenous.
Such cosmopolitanism engagement will involve a process of problematization, pluralisation,
and developmental change whereby the very act of explaining oneself to others constitutes an
act of translation through which it becomes possible to open oneself to incorporating an ele-
ment of anotherâs culture into oneâs own, thereby giving rise to the possibility of a third culture â a
space of possibility between the particular identities of those present that contains new emer-
gent possibilities for the group as a whole.10
Competencies addressed in this curriculum
This curriculum aims to provide a specific understanding of cosmopolitanism: reflective loyalty
with a local and reflective openness to novelty and difference.
At the same time, this approach has to modify the way we address the core problems of
multicultural coexistence: personal identity, relationships between local and global, relationships
between the individual and the community, customs and traditions, human rights, justice, and
truth.
Reflecting about these problems âin the context of a community of philosophical inquiry
which accepts cosmopolitanism as a frame of mindâ requires the development of myriad
cognitive and affective competencies that are the heart of this curriculum. From amongst the
competences that appear in this curriculum, we want to especially emphasize those that are
foundational to the basics tenets of this proposal.
8 For example, as described by Hansen and Delanty.
9 Delanty, The Cosmopolitan Imagination, p. 7.
10 Ibid.
zurĂŒck zum
Buch Reflective Cosmopolitanism - Educating towards inclusive communities through Philosophical Enquiry"
Reflective Cosmopolitanism
Educating towards inclusive communities through Philosophical Enquiry
- Titel
- Reflective Cosmopolitanism
- Untertitel
- Educating towards inclusive communities through Philosophical Enquiry
- Herausgeber
- Ediciones La Rectoral
- Sprache
- englisch
- Lizenz
- CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
- Abmessungen
- 21.0 x 29.7 cm
- Seiten
- 172
- Kategorien
- International
- LehrbĂŒcher PEACE Projekt