COSMOPOLITANISM, THE CITIZEN AND PROCESS OF ABJECTION

the double gestures of pedagogy

Abstract

This chapter concerns the cultural production of the citizen. It argues that schooling entails double gestures: the inscription of cosmopolitan theses about the child as the future citizen and processes of abjection, the casting out of those who constitute fears of that future. That cosmopolitan citizen embodies global hopes of a unified humanity guided by reason, rationality, and with hospitality to Others. The unity, however, embodies comparative divisions that distinguish the qualities of the citizen from those abjected; groups and individual recognized in need of special programs in order be included; yet different and excluded by virtue of their modes of life. Contemporary U.S. and European school reforms and research inscribe the double gestures: the unfinished cosmopolitanism and the urban, disadvantaged, immigrant, and “the child left behind” as in the in-between space of inclusion and exclusion. The third section explores reform oriented research that designs changes in the school conditions designs people though a comparative cultural theses.