Twelfth International Conference on e-Learning & Innovative Pedagogies

Abstract

My paper focuses on what I denominate multidimensional cosmopolitan dialogue as an intersection of dialogical lifelong learning and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The first research question is about the role of dialogue in education and for peace and I believe the answer is the same one influential thinkers as Francis Parker, John Dewey, Tsunesaburo Makiguchi, Lev Vygotsky, Mikhail Bakhtin, and Paulo Freire advocated: the purpose of education is not memorization of decontextualized rationality but “the preparation for meaningful and lifelong learning, critically social engagement and creativity” (Goulah, 2011, p. 233). In the SDGs era, the dialogue needs to be intertwined with cosmopolitanism in order to impact education and put the student in the center of the local and global transformation. Education is in the central place for the SDGs achievement, specifically, lifelong learning (Filho, Mifsud and Paul, 2018) that is in the core of Goal 4. This study examines lifelong learning ideas in the Daisaku Ikeda’s (1928- ) proposals to the United Nations from 2000 to 2019. Other question this research addressed: To which extent Soka education (and concepts as lifelong learning, etc) can be a catalyst to create a dialogical environment rooted in the individual potentialities that can lead to the SDGs achievements? I conclude Ikeda’s proposals have a coherent and persistent petition for a shift in the educational concepts: from a self-centered life to a contributive dialogical and cosmopolitan existence in which “no one is left behind” (United Nations, 2015).