Asia literacy in Australian education and its nexus with cosmopolitan praxis

Abstract

The focus of this chapter is analysing the role of Asia literacy in Australian education through a discussion of ‘cosmopolitan praxis’ (van den Anker, Bridging the gaps in global ethics: grounded cosmopolitan praxis. In: Commers R, Vandekerckhove W, Verlinden A (eds) Ethics in an era of globalization. Ashgate, Bristol, pp 41–54, 2008). This is done against the background of recent calls arguing for a change in how the term ‘Asia literacy’ is conceptualised and dealt with in Australian education. In seeking to respond to this debate, a version of Fazal Rizvi’s (Aust Educ Res 35(1):17–35, 2008; Discourse 30(3):253–268, 2009) notion of cosmopolitan learning is extended so that it can provide a useful frame for rethinking the relationship between education and an increasingly interconnected world that is strewn with ambivalence (Appiah, Cosmopolitanism: ethics in a world of strangers. W.W. Norton & Company, New York, 2006) and what that means for teaching Asia literacy. In doing so, it attempts to address the theoretical and grounded complexities of the notions of Asia and Asia literacy in Australian education in the context of Australia as a globalising society.