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