MURAL - Maynooth University Research Archive Library



    Teachers judging without scripts, or thinking cosmopolitan


    Todd, Sharon (2007) Teachers judging without scripts, or thinking cosmopolitan. Ethics and Education, 2 (1). pp. 25-38. ISSN 1744-9642

    [img]
    Preview
    Download (89kB) | Preview


    Share your research

    Twitter Facebook LinkedIn GooglePlus Email more...



    Add this article to your Mendeley library


    Abstract

    A cosmopolitan ethic invites both an appreciation of the rich diversity of values, traditions and ways of life and a commitment to broad, universal principles of human rights that can secure the flourishing of that diversity. Despite the tension between universalism and particularism inherent in this outlook, it has received much recent attention in education. I focus here on one of the dilemmas to be faced in taking cosmopolitanism seriously, namely, the difficulty of judging what is just in the context of an increasingly divergent public—and classroom—discourse about values, rights and equality. I propose in what follows that judgement cannot rely on any script, even one as attractive, perhaps, as cosmopolitanism. To explore what is at stake in making judgements in an educational context, I draw on both Hannah Arendt’s and Emmanuel Levinas’s notions of judgement and thinking. The paper discusses the educational significance of thought and judgement as conditions for reframing the universalism–particularism problem found in a cosmopolitan ethic. My argument is that there is a world of difference between educating for cosmopolitanism, which entails a faith in principles, and ‘thinking cosmopolitan’, which entails a hope in justice for my neighbours.

    Item Type: Article
    Keywords: Cosmopolitanism; Judgement; Thinking; Arendt; Levinas; Teachers; Universalism; Particularism;
    Academic Unit: Faculty of Social Sciences > Education
    Item ID: 8554
    Identification Number: https://doi.org/10.1080/17449640701302750
    Depositing User: Prof. Sharon Todd
    Date Deposited: 02 Aug 2017 09:23
    Journal or Publication Title: Ethics and Education
    Publisher: Taylor & Francis
    Refereed: Yes
    URI:
    Use Licence: This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

    Repository Staff Only(login required)

    View Item Item control page

    Downloads

    Downloads per month over past year

    Origin of downloads