Transformative cosmopolitan education and Gandhi's relevance today

• Main Author: Gregor Lang-Wojtasik
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: UCL Press 2018-05-01
• Series: International Journal of Development Education and Global Learning
• Online Access: https://www.scienceopen.com/document?vid=fe9ae02b-9fae-42b9-acf7-466214772ab6

The understanding of transformative education in this article is based on the principles and practice of global learning. Globalization is understood as a transformative process creating challenges for society, human beings and education. Global learning, framed within sustainability and justice, is understood as a way of handling the transformative challenges of a world society. It is embedded in processes of European history. In this way, it is possible to see global learning as world societal literacy that goes beyond reading and writing, and to understand it as another level of enlightenment. To do so, I refer to the social, philosophical and educational ideas of M. K. Gandhi, also known as Mahatma ('great soul') (1869–1948), which still create a basis for reformoriented concepts of basic education, literacy and sociopolitical literacy in India today. These are historical concepts concerning transformation of the self and education as a means of handling transformative societies beyond an existing understanding of Western civilization in a systematic way. The concluding concept of transformative cosmopolitan education presents World Nai Talim as a basis for an enlightenment that is equally applicable to both the Global South and North.