Caring Cosmopolitanism

A cutting edge program, the UBC Urban Learner M.Ed has been developed to further an understanding of challenges and achievements in urban education. It draws from, and builds upon the expertise and rich experiences of school teachers and other education practitioners working in urban school environments. While appreciating and extending the rigor of inquiry in urban education, the program challenges past stereotypes of urban ‘problems’ and languages of ‘risk’ and places the notion of Caring Cosmopolitanism and the institutions of Education at the heart of the revival of urban schools, networked publics, communities, and landscapes.

A cosmopolitan vision as presented in this program invites in education professionals an ethical and reflexive outlook of care  of self and the Other, underpinned by a grasp of the complex and multidimensional social and political realities, and embodied and technological social networks, in which they practice, live, and act.  The vision hence draws on the vast resources and strengths of urban learning communities and institutions and, of course, the diversity and rich heritage of its people and their histories.

The Urban Learner M.Ed. program therefore aims to:

• Enhance and extend further the cohort participants’ knowledge and understanding of urban education, and the rich “urban assets”: of culture,  new media, the arts, civic and sacred institutions, commerce, architecture and public spaces, etc.;
• Recognize, appreciate and celebrate the work of educators who are actively trying to ‘make a difference’ in the lives of children, parents and diverse communities in multicultural urban areas;
• Extend cohort participants’ understanding of the networked technologies, discourse, practices, and lived experiences entailed in Caring Cosmopolitanism towards positively enhancing urban education environments and the impact on those living in those environments;
• Support cohort participants in inquiring about their own (and others’) practice as researchers, specific to their profession in urban education settings;
• Encourage collaborative approaches to academic, professional and community engagement and growth; and
• Provide a rich and rewarding course of study which culminates in fulfilling the participants’ career stage standing as required by the Teacher Qualification Service of British Columbia (TQS).