International Education and the Crises of Cosmopolitanism and Global Citizenship

Abstract

Globalisation has not only given rise to unprecedented dimensions of mobility of people and ideas across national borders, but it has also enhanced the activities involved in international education (IE) and inevitably drawn attention to the growing levels of cultural diversity and the necessity for cultural exchange among the ‘global communities’. Arguably, these phenomena have equally given rise to the possibilities of both cultural exchange and conflicts of interest in what constitutes an effective IE. Besides, recent phenomenal development in digital technologies has enabled people across vast far afield to be in close relations with one another; thus, opening new vistas to an effectively transnational world that could be aptly regarded as a global village. Parts of the fundamental concepts of IE which have agitated the minds of several international scholars are cosmopolitanism and global citizenship (GC). As part of the tenets of GC and cosmopolitanism, it is expected that people are treated equally and that preference should not be given to any particular cultural, political, linguistic, or national group, most especially at the expense of others. Meanwhile, there are scholarly arguments that global education has a fundamental role to play in preparing students for a world that is increasingly interconnected and interdependent. Several advocacies in the light of cosmopolitanism and GC in the context of IE have been principally brought to the fore by several scholars not only as moral frameworks resonant with educators’ efforts to cultivate people’s openness to new ideas but also as a mutual understanding through respectful dialogue, as well as the awareness of the peculiarities within the cultural values of the others. Meanwhile, there have been stridently diverse arguments from several scholars that the contemporary global practices in IE do not reflect the tenets as well as _modus operandi_ as espoused by the concepts of cosmopolitanism and or GC. It was equally argued that there exist varying levels of disequilibria in the contemporary IE, and this has made the cultural realities inherent in the ‘others’ to be disparagingly relegated. Imperatively, in recent times, there have been several calls from scholars advocating the critical incorporation of cosmopolitan dynamics and realities in approaches to IE (to reflect some of the basic hallmarks and or tenets of GC). Although the positive realisation of these attempts or calls is still at the developing stage in educational practices, recent works in other disciplines promise to forward such a critical agenda. It is, therefore, against this background that both the extant and current literature is critically and scholarly engaged to interrogate the concepts of cosmopolitanism and GC in the context of IE. At the same time, the treatise is principally divided into four (4) sections which include: conceptual clarifications of the terms: international education (IE), global citizenship, and cosmopolitanism; a critical analysis of Western, Asian (Chinese) and African perspectives on cosmopolitanism and global citizenship as well as crises of global citizenship and cosmopolitanism in the light of IE. However, the paper gives a conclusion and puts forth recommendations.