The education of citizens has historically been linked to nation-building projects that were premised on exclusionary narratives and singular identities and allegiances. To counteract these tendencies, cosmopolitan models of citizenship and citizenship education are often proposed. Cosmpolitanism is a broad church, and these proposals are often abstract rather than detailed policy proposals. However, this paper seeks to examine what role (if any) cosmopolitan approaches to education can contribute to dealing with one of the key challenges facing contemporary societies – namely dealing with diversity, or more specifically, educating young people to live and work in a diverse society.
In the process, this paper will tackle two questions. First, what kind of cosmopolitan resources are associated with students’ reporting cosmopolitan attitudes, identities and values? Second, do students’ report higher levels of cosmopolitan attitudes, identities and values in countries that have adopted a cosmopolitan model of citizenship education?
These questions will be examined empirically, drawing on data from the International Civics and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS) and its National Context Survey.
