Global justice and education: from nation to neuron

Abstract

What is the relationship between education and global justice? This question is addressed within Ulrich Beck’s notion of global “goods” and “bads”, through a multidisciplinary approach, which E.O. Wilson terms “consilience” – a “jumping together” of knowledge from international relations to neuroscience. A critical political analysis proposes that global justice is not, as claimed, dependent on nation states but predates them. The educational contribution can be viewed as “knowledge as a global public good” and “bad”, within which intergenerational justice is promoted through “indirect” cultural leadership to create a future‐oriented “design for living”. The paper then explores a deeper evolutionary psychology understanding of why educating for global justice is difficult, and yet potentially easy. Understanding “brain lag” is central. The concluding arguments are that education has, historically, been a precursor of justice not just an outcome, and that it should embody a right of access to diverse global knowledge, ideas, and jokes.

Keywords:

• global justice
• global citizenship
• global public goods
• evolutionary psychology
• education rights