Cosmopolitan Learning for a Global Era

Book excerpt: Ensuring that higher education students are fully prepared for lives as global citizens is a pressing concern in the contemporary world. This book draws on insights from cosmopolitan thought to identify how people from different backgrounds can find common ground. By applying cosmopolitan insights to higher education practice, Sarah Richardson charts how students can be given the opportunity to experience a truly international education, which emphasises deep cultural exchange rather than mere transactional contact. Written in an engaging and accessible style, the author uses empirical evidence to show that simply studying alongside those different to themselves or studying overseas are inadequate in preparing students to lead the diverse societies of tomorrow. Instead, the book calls for a coherent approach to higher education that properly prepares students to lead global lives. Chapters highlight a number of key aspects of higher education practice, from curriculum to pedagogy, to educator skills to assessment, and demonstrate how these can be reconsidered to give students the opportunity to gain cosmopolitan attributes during their higher education. Cosmopolitan Learning for a Global Era will be of great interest to researchers, scholars and postgraduate students, with a particular focus on cosmopolitan thought, international education and higher education more broadly, as well as university educators and leaders across a wide range of disciplinary areas.