Multiculturalism In Australia

Education in a cosmopolitan Society

Multiculturalism is being challenged by new theories of cosmopolitanism. Discuss in relation to education.
Theories of multiculturalism and cosmopolitanism have had a profound effect on Australian curriculum and education. Issues such as racism and secularisation have been a prominent feature of discussion in relation to the way it shapes the Australian curriculum and the shaping of our society. Multicultural education has been incorporated into the Australian curriculum since 1983. Rooted into the curriculum were multicultural perspectives and intercultural education, as an attempt to change attitudes towards a multicultural society. “Multiculturalism, in this sense, is ideologically inscribed in the
(Ang, I. & Stratton, 1998) Since its introduction multiculturalism has been a policy that worked to accommodate the needs of immigrants. Multiculturalism became a theory that expressed the personality of the emergent ethno-cultural diversity of society in the final decades of the twentieth century. Although in theory, multiculturalism preaches equality, the development of self-awareness and self-worth, society has been faced with several problems in regards to the practice of multiculturalism in Australian curriculum. Some of these problems stem from the mentality where Social groups stay together and exclude others and also labelling on the basis of stereotypes occurs. It has also seen to have many benefits like the decrease of cultural based racism and an awareness of other cultures. Multicultural policies are constantly challenged and changing in Australia due to emerging cosmopolitan ideas and the way that these ideas shape the changing education curriculum in
Differing from multiculturalism, cosmopolitanism acknowledges the fact that cultures can change and their mode of orientation to the world can also change so that people can develop a cosmopolitan disposition for themselves in the form of self-transformation. Where multiculturalism has problems of selectiveness, cosmopolitanism maintains indifference to labels and stereotypes to create a diverse atmosphere. Cosmopolitanism pursues to assume transformations in cultural standards through the education of self-awareness, agency and identity. Together with education, cosmopolitanism and multiculturalism contributes to modelling a inclusive society. Delanty (2006) states, “The critical aspect of cosmopolitanism concerns the internal transformation of social and cultural phenomena through self-problematisation and pluralisation. It is in the interplay of self, other and world that cosmopolitan processes come into play. Without a learning process, that is an internal cognitive transformation, it makes little sense in calling something cosmopolitan. As used here, the term refers to a developmental change in the social world arising out of competing cultural models. This suggests a procedural conception of the social.”
Cosmopolitan learning is ‘not so much concerned with imparting knowledge and developing attitudes and skills for understanding other cultures per se but with helping students