Towards a ‘global educational justice’ research paradigm: cognitive justice, decolonizing methodologies and critical pedagogy

Abstract

This article challenges three predominant narratives on educational globalization—‘educational restructuring,’ ‘educational institutionalism,’ and ‘educational multilateralism’—and shows how they have largely failed to propose alternatives to the neoliberal order. I connect two disparate literatures—on educational globalization and anti‐globalization social movements—to argue that the alternative globalization movement performs global citizenship education through critical pedagogy, cognitive justice, and decolonizing methodologies. To arrive at a multi‐layered model of citizenship, what is needed is not only critical pedagogy, but a fundamental critique of the cognitive injustice inherent within the hegemonic neoliberal ideology by re‐asserting the diversity of value systems and restoring subjugated knowledges through alternative methodologies. Drawing upon my participant observation at the 2003 anti‐G8 Summit in France and anti‐World Trade Organization meeting in Mexico, as well as the fourth World Social Forum in India, I propose a new research program on global educational justice.