The Need for Cosmopolitan Literacy in a Global Age: Implications for Teaching Literature

Abstract

Cosmopolitan literacy, entailing critical ethical engagements with diverse cultures and values, is best developed through literature that provides opportunities for students to evaluate ethical values, explore ethical dilemmas, and engage with issues of justice.

Cultivating sprouts of benevolence: a foundational principle for curriculum in civic and multicultural education

“…This differs from the knowledge found in most formal curricula, which typically emphasize legal principles, statistics, generic groups of people ('citizens,' 'immigrants,' 'minorities'), and other generalizations. Although such abstractions do play an important role in the curriculum, when they are removed from the human stories they represent they are unlikely to motivate students to feel compassion (Choo, 2018;Fisher, 1995;Hatano & Inagaki, 1993;Levstik, 1986). As a result, such generalized information cannot be the starting point for curriculum designed to engage students in deliberation of social issues.…”

“…Although they may not consider remote events as threatening to their identities and contemporary commitments, more recent events have a contemporary relevance that leads them to perceive them in very different ways. Civic education curricula are thus unlikely to produce young people who, across the board, are more sympathetic (Rorty, 1993), more ethically cosmopolitan (Choo, 2018), or who have a 'rich and well-balanced emotional register' (Thiele, 2006, p. 192). Rather, what curriculum can do is enable students to extend such sensibilities in specific instances.…”

Narrating Global Literacies: Crossing Borders of Exclusion During a Time of Crisis

“…Another body of scholarship examines cosmopolitanism (Campano & Ghiso, 2011; Choo, 2018; Delanty, 2006; Hull et al, 2013; Hull & Storniauolo, 2010, 2014; Sánchez & Ensor, 2020), which draws ties to transnational/transcultural literacies in that it focuses on deepening connections between local–global concerns and developing a sense of interconnectedness between community commitments. Scholars in this field of research urge schools to construct ways for students and teachers to develop social agency regarding global flows of knowledge and action toward the goal of advancing a more equitable society.…”

“…Cosmopolitanism scholarship also raises important questions about the need to disrupt assimilationist ideology in schools and develop opportunities for students to be viewed as invaluable contributors to an evolving, diverse world. Choo (2018), for example, advocates for teachers to use literature to study ethical values and dilemmas through intercultural and diverse understandings. She also warrants the inclusion of pedagogical approaches, such as literature circles, which provide vital spaces for students to exercise cosmopolitan discourses and dispositions.…”

“…One way of taking down a school’s walls to enter into the world involves rearranging the pedagogical architecture to include global literacies. As Choo (2018) describes,Today, the notion of literacy must account not merely for social processes but also for global processes. The global turn in literacy studies affirms the cultural and linguistic diversity of students and acknowledges the need to empower them with a plurality of literacies .…”