Creolization, critical pedagogy, and cosmopolitanism: Enacting 21st century student identities and literacy practices in a college skills class

In times of rapid globalization where traditional knowledge and identity categories are increasingly transformed by the mixing of languages, blendings of races, and the crossings of traditional geo-political borders, I explore the need for suitable theory, methodology, and applications for educational practice to describe and inform this reality.;This dissertation is a qualitative ethnographic case study of three focal students enrolled in a college skills class. Contrary to prescriptivist models of developmental or remedial education in higher education, I work to uncover the unique knowledge and skills of 21st Century students, often those who claim heritages from multiple ethnic, racial, and/or national roots. Drawing on realist theories of identity and analyzing contemporary student identities in the classroom and through literacy/literary engagements, the Arts, and Literature, alternative ways of knowing and doing emerge.;Looking to the theory and process of creolization, a model ripe for exploring our increasingly interconnected world, I unpack contemporary student engagements in a college classroom. Creolization is a horizontal-moving process which accounts for the ways in which we encounter difference. Beginning with Errantry, then moving on to Entanglement, Relation, Synthesis, New Knowledge, and Cosmopolitanism, creolization is an urgently needed conceptual tool to describe and enrich our ever diversifying educational spaces. Students who are seen and see themselves as part of the process of creoliation ultimately come away with a sense of cosmopolitanism, as world-citizens and global scholars. Additionally, I provide a framework for using creolization as an analytical tool, focusing on four salient areas of inquiry: creolite (creoleness), identity, critical pedagogy, and new cosmopolitanism.