Global Justice In & Through Education

When asking fundamental questions about education, philosophers have not shied away from giving radical answers. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, for example, who found himself disenchanted with the artificiality and pride that he encountered in 18th century Paris, advocated a laissez faire education in the countryside. Such an “education by nature,” Rousseau thought, could shield children from a morally corrupt society and would allow them to become authentic and sincere persons. Similarly concerned with moral education, in the early 20th century the American pragmatist John Dewey argued that experiential learning in socially diverse settings would be crucial for nourishing democratic culture. Being a pragmatist, Dewey also maintained that educational philosophy should always concentrate on solving practical difficulties of contemporary social life, instead of dealing with idle intellectual puzzles. In this spirit, oriented towards educational practice, several philosophers of education have recently turned their attention to the ways in which education might help solving some of the pressing problems arising from globalization. During the two-day international workshop on “Global Justice In and Through Education,” held at AUP on November 29 and 30, 2018, several renowned educational thinkers debated their most recent works with the AUP community.

Professor Harry Brighouse (University of Wisconsin-Madison) kicked off the workshop with his keynote lecture “There’s No Such Thing as a Private School.” Challenging how the private-public distinction is usually drawn, he claimed that not only do many privately funded schools serve public interests, but also that many public schools would serve private interests. Professor Alejandra Boni (University of Valencia) analyzed how power asymmetries in global knowledge production can give rise to epistemic injustices and explored how academics can collaborate with civil society actors to fight such injustices.

Professor Johannes Drerup (University of Koblenz-Landau) responded to the postcolonial critique that global citizenship education is Western-centric by arguing that the dichotomy of “the West vs. the Rest” is outdated and that the critical study of colonialism should be part of global citizenship education. Professor Juan Espindola (Center for Economic Research, Mexico City) criticized that low fee private schools in many developing countries often times do not provide an adequate education, and that global philanthropists should therefore be more careful in their support for these schools.

Professor Jennifer Morton (City College of New York) started from the observation that elite universities in the Global North educate future global and national elites around the entire world, and then went on to explain why this role implied a distinct responsibility for these universities to help empower local universities in the Global South. Finally, Danielle Zwarthoed (Catholic University of Louvain) critically examined the proposal that education for autonomy could be conceived of as a global educational aim, and pointed out that not only do non-Western cultures endorse the ideal of autonomy, but also that autonomy increasingly gains practical value in a world in which mobility is ubiquitous.

The international workshop was hosted by the Center for Critical Democracy Studies and AUP Professors Maria Bach, Oliver Feltham, Philip Golub, Peter Hägel and Jula Wildberger served as discussants. In 2019 the workshop papers will be published in a special issue of the journal Global Justice: Theory Practice Rhetoric, edited by the workshop convener, AUP Professor Julian Culp.