Re-Imagined Universities and Global Citizen Professionals ― International Education, Cosmopolitan Pedagogies and Global Friendships

Higher education is increasingly under fire for its overwhelming response to market considerations rather than nurturing essential human values. International higher education that attracts students from developing countries to 'world class' universities is criticized for demonstrating inadequate civic responsibility within an unequal world. Re-Imagined Universities and Global Citizen Professionals enriches these debates by drawing on the narratives of 124 individuals from 27 countries who attended a school of international development studies in Europe. Such experiences can be used by universities to rethink the education that they provide and to move towards cosmopolitan pedagogies that elicit multiple knowledges from students who include mid-career practitioners, researchers and activists. Faculty would become co-learners who facilitate students' self-education and help them articulate tacit knowledge. Eurocentrism would be replaced by 'one world education' that challenges the imagined boundaries between the Global South and the Global North. International friendships could then include rather than exclude marginalized students. The book concludes with an outline of some early efforts towards such change by contemporary universities.

Shanti George is an independent researcher, based in The Hague. She has been Reader at the University of Delhi, India, Visiting Senior Lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe and programme specialist for West Asia and North Africa at the Bernard van Leer Foundation. Her books cover comparative rural development, development education, and global perspectives on foster care.