Abstract:

Ever since Roland Robertson defined globalization as ‘the compression of the world and the intensification of the consciousness of the world as a whole’ (1992:8), sociological research on the increasing tightening of a global web of communal interaction and interdependency has proliferated massively, prompting a dramatic growth and expansion of new knowledge areas owing to the incredible power of information technology, communication and mobility through travel. In my opinion, globalization alongside cosmopolitanism enables communities to unlearn nationalistic modes of self-identification and start to contribute to a global culture conceiving a responsible world citizenship based on the paradox that ‘there are no others..[but] many others’. (Tomlinson1999:194).
This paper will consider the ways in which global education can be shaped to refashion a progressive vision of a cosmopolitan global culture, pointing a way forward to a viable world-communal future. While globalization on one hand has primarily initiated a process of ‘complex connectivity’ (Tomlinson 1999:4), the 9/11 terror, on the other hand has ushered in an anxiety of disconnection and fragmentation. Consequently, the 21st century is today, characterized by rupture, migration, displacement, discontinuity and conflict drastically altering individual and collective identities. In its compressed form, the world today is a contradicting admixture of diversity caught between the oppositional pulls of connectivity as well as dis-connectivity. How do we develop a heightened sense of global interconnectedness and interdependency through education? How can we re-shape the role of education and research in this global context of conflict? Are our own local as well as global trends in education well placed to confront and address global issues? How do we generate new knowledge skills and perspectives in research and learning stressing on the importance of liberal education and world citizenship? Given the problematic of constant change and contingency owing to the global movement, are our learning /teaching systems well equipped to keep pace with the fast flowing tides of global transformations?
My interest primarily lies in reformulating a new pattern of global studies taking into account the ideas, issues and pressures reflected within the context of our global community which is prone to both affiliation as well as dispersion. Education /research, I believe, mainly in the field of humanities, can describe and address social problems requiring collective remedies that can transcend national borders. The purpose of global education, in my opinion, is to enable individual and public intervention in a social collective and help identify ethical and moral questions that underlie a given transaction between world cultures. The paper will discuss these and other related issues while foregrounding education and research as a potential sites of reflection and learning which can help to engage with a social dialogue and lead to a positive exchange and enterprise even when faced with radical difference.

Keywords:

Global Education, Globalization, Cosmopolitanism, World Citizenship.