Imagining Educational Futures: The Relevance of Asian Cosmopolitanism to Education

Speakers Assoc Prof Suzanne Choo (top middle), Prof Fazal Rizvi (top right), Prof Jason Goulah (bottom left), and Prof Liz Jackson (bottom middle) with the webinar host, Dr Dennis Kwek (bottom right)

On 28 November 2020, the “Imagining Educational Futures” Webinar Series was launched at the National Institute of Education (NIE). This webinar series invites educators and education researchers to come together to imagine the future of education and the ever-changing educational landscape.

The pilot webinar dealt with “The Relevance of Asian Cosmopolitanism to Education”. With globalisation, scholarly interest in cosmopolitanism and its implications for education has risen. While cosmopolitanism is commonly regarded as originating from Cynic and Stoic philosophers in Ancient Greece, cosmopolitan ideals are also seen in philosophical ideas from the East. This webinar brought together four prominent scholars to discuss Asian cosmopolitanism, Eastern philosophies, and their significance for education today as we face intensifying xenophobia and intolerance arising from the global pandemic.

The speakers, in order of appearance, were:

1. Prof Fazal Rizvi, Professor Emeriti at the University of Melbourne and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who started the webinar off by speaking on “Asian Cosmopolitanisms in Contact Zones”;

2. Prof Liz Jackson, Professor of International Education at the Education University of Hong Kong, who discussed “Cosmopolitanism in Hong Kong Education: East vs. West”;

3. Prof Jason Goulah, Professor of Bilingual-Bicultural Education and Director of the Institute for Daisaku Ikeda Studies in Education, DePaul University, who touched on “The Soka Movement of Cosmopolitanism: Makiguchi, Toda, and Ikeda”; and

4. Assoc Prof Suzanne Choo, Associate Professor in the English Language and Literature Academic Group in NIE, who wrapped up the series of presentations with “Interrogating 21^st century education discourses through the lens of Sen’s Capabilities Approach and Confucian cosmopolitanism”.

Dr Dennis Kwek, Centre Director of the Centre for Research in Pedagogy and Practice and Assoc Dean (Strategic Engagement) at the Office of Education Research in NIE, was the host for the session, with Assoc Prof Choo moderating the engaging panel discussion at the end of the session. The webinar was attended by over 70 people across Asia, Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

You can watch the recording of the session here: