Liberal Education in the Era of Migration, Refugee Crises, and Decolonization

Liberal Education in the Era of Migration, Refugee Crises, and Decolonization

Liberal Education Conference

May 4-5, 2023

Mount Royal University Calgary, Alberta, Canada

The present realities of decolonization, immigration, and refugee migration require critical enquiries into the provision of liberal studies in higher education. The aims and methods of liberal education as a pedagogical exercise and a cultural practice need to be examined within the dynamic intellectual, social, economic, and political contexts created by today’s unprecedented movement of peoples and intersections of cultures. Variously seen as forced migration, exile, dislocation, statelessness and even environmentally induced displacement, the Global refugee crises present multilocational and multilayered challenges. This conference aims to create a focused debate around not only the phenomenon of refugee migration but also seeks to understand the crises as within a continuum of other constructions of the refugee as the non-Western Other. This construction leads to the near necessity of speaking of decolonization as an imperative located possibly within liberal education and its practices. The intertwining of the refugee experience with Indigenous communities’ lived experience calls for thoughtful intervention. Can liberal education aid in the process of decolonization? Is it a singular process, or are there multiple ways in which decolonization can occur? What does decolonization look like?

The aims of liberal education are variously articulated as an instrument for the teaching of transferable practical skills, the making and enabling of responsible citizens, or the cultivation of virtue, self- knowledge, and broad, general wisdom. These aims and the means of achieving them all need to be reassessed as our wider society is transformed by both by the infusion of new peoples and the increased engagement of Indigenous communities.

The Department of General Education at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, and its partner, Medicine Hat College, in Medicine Hat Alberta, Canada and U of Lethbridge invite papers and panel presentations      for our fifth Liberal Education Conference on the theme of Liberal Education in an Era of Migration, Refugee Crises, and Decolonization. Broad topic areas related to this may include, but are not excluded to:

• the challenges to the historical grounding of liberal education in a time of increased cultural heterogeneity
• the place of liberal education in the construction of a common meeting place in society embracing diverse, distinct cultures
• the experience of arrival and purposes of liberal education for refugee or recent immigrant
• the possibility of a coherent program of liberal education in the absence of a common culture
• liberal education as a progressive instrument in the face of hostility to migration, decolonization and cultural diversity
• the aims of liberal education in a multi-cultural society