Abstract

One of the most pervasive educational debates in recent decades, from mainstream media to educational policy, research, and philosophy, has been shaped by a concern with an apparently radical shift in the conception of public education from a primarily national to a global outlook. What authors mean by the ‘globalizing world’ to which contemporary educational institutions are supposed to adjust ranges from the emergence of new powerful supranational actors on the educational scene to globalizing economic structures, neoliberal policies, global cultural changes, to more flexible, mobile, and diverse populations as well as to the increase of worldwide communication due to the fast spreading of new media and technologies. The revival of the old ideal of the cosmopolitan can in this context be understood as an attempt to articulate an adequate response to the demands that these new developments make on future citizens, and hence educational institutions, actors, and practices. We will address the distinction between classic cosmopolitanism and the so-called new cosmopolitanisms and the specific hopes and dangers which different philosophers of education have associated with the respective ideals of the future world citizens. Instead of naively falling into the trap of conceiving of globalization and cosmopolitanism as mere positive potential or negative threat for education, the chapter will emphasize the multiple critical approaches and the points of departure for resistance and transformation which have been articulated from ethical, social, cultural, and political cosmopolitan frameworks against the recently prevailing unilateral economic interpretations of current educational challenges.