| dc.description.abstract | It is held that we now experience a "cosmopolitan turn" within the social and political sciences, including the discipline of education. But what are the vital characteristics of this turn? And what
appears as its potential pitfalls and possibilities? The aim of this paper is to explore the current mantra of cosmopolitanism and the ways in which it is a product of – and produces – a common sense, an alldoxa, and a symbolic universe representing and naming the world: It is here held that "cosmopolitanism" is a name carrying symbolic representations with more or less hidden epistemic functions. But in assuming something which it is not, the new cosmopolitanism carries an inherent paradox. The last part of the paper explores this paradox and its impossible possibilities: In what ways may the inherent contradictions of the new cosmopolitanism affect its making? And what may be the potential pitfalls and possibilities of a discourse jeopardizing the very vision of the social world? | eng |