Globalization and Education Learning Objectives: After studying the chapter, you should be able to: 1.

Identify the characteristics of globalization that are related to education. 2. Describe how socio-cultural, environmental, geographical, economic, political, and equity issues affect globalization. 3. Discuss and explain globalization and education in the perspective of conflict and consensus theorists. 4. Discuss the impact of globalization on the process and progress of education. Introduction Globalization is most often used to describe the growing integration of economics worldwide through increases in trade, investment flows, and technology transfer. The term conveys a sense that international forces are driving more and more developments in the world, and thus crystallizes both the hopes of some people that we will finally achieve a global society and the fears of many others that their lives and jobs are threatened by forces beyond their control. (Chronicle of Higher Education, January 23, 1998). One could think that globalization is only a matter of industry and business, and that education as a moral process is not part of this development. However, if we understand education as a part of the information business, education systems can be seen as the core of the globalization process. Rinne (2000) emphasizes that educational policy has become an ever more important part of economic, trade labor and social policy in the western countries. One concrete global development is the development of mega-universities, university networks and virtual universities, that can offer competitive training programs for students recruited from all over the world.

GLOBAL EDUCATION ANG GLOBALIZATION An education for globalization should therefore nurture the higher order cognitive and interpersonal skills required for problem finding, problem-solving, articulating arguments, and deploying verifiable facts or artifacts. These skills should be required of children and youth who will as adults, fully engage the larger world and master its greatest challenges, transforming it for the betterment of humanity regardless of national origin or cultural upbringing. Globalization has become a widespread idea in national and international dialogue in recent years. But what do we mean when we invoke each of these terms, and is there really a meaningful distinction between the two.

Globalizations shifting and controversial parameters make it difficult to describe it as clearly as a dominant force, both positively and negatively, shaping the environment in which we live. Motivated by economic forces and driven by digital technologies and communications, globalization links individuals and institutions across the world with unprecedented interconnection. In doing so, it, in some ways, democratizes and intensifies interdependence and in other ways creates new forms of local reaction and self-definition. While it may spread certain freedoms, higher living standards, and a sense of international relatedness, it also threatens the world with a universal economy and culture rooted in the North American and Western ideals and interests. Despite the ambiguities in the definition and significance, and the anxieties and backlashes it generates, globalization will remain a dominant paradigm for the foreseeable future. Global education, as distinct from globalization, does what higher education has traditionally aimed to do: extend students awareness of the world in which they live by opening them to the diverse heritage of human thoughts and action, and creativity. Global education places particular emphasis on the changes in communication and relationships among people throughout the world highlighting issues as human conflict, economic systems, human rights and social justice, human commonality and diversity, literatures and cultures, and the impact of the technological revolution. While it continues to depend on the traditional branches of specialist knowledge, global education seeks t o weave the boundaries between the disciplines and encourages the emphasis on what interdisciplinary and multi-disciplinary studies can bring to the understanding of solutions to human problems. Some see global education as a vehicle for the promotion of global education that might see itself be seen as the Wests effort to destabilize fragile balances in economic and the political systems. At the time, such as this, when we feel increasingly and often indiscriminately awash with information, and when we sense a decentralization of the traditional forms of political and intellectual authority, global education places a preference on the ability to think critically and ethically. The ability to effectively access, interpret, evaluate and apply information is essential for facing a constantly changing work environment, for continuing self-education, and for participation as an ethical and responsible member of the a global society (globaleducation.edu: Global Education vs. Globalization) CHARACTERISTICS OF GLOBALIZATION THAT CAN BE LINKED TO EDUCATION In seeking to understand and theorize the nature of globalization and its effects in education, it is argued that globalization has both potentially negative as well as potentially positive effects. It is also argued that the restructuring of the state under the impact of neo-liberalism, which has been the underpinning ideology of economic globalization, has had a real effect upon the structures of education, as well as potentially positive effects. It also argued that the restructuring of the state under the impact of neo-liberalism, which has been the underpinning ideology of economic globalization, has had a real

effect upon the structures of education, as well as upon educational policies in the form of new managerialism and human capital theory. Furthermore, the cultural and social effects affects the experiences which young people now bring with them to education. Educational policies in the communities now work beyond as well as in and around the nation, precipitating some global policy convergence. This convergence, however, is always nuanced by the play of the specifically local with these pressures, resulting in educational policy complexity and contingency. (Rizvi and Linguard, 2000) In the light of these arguments, it is extremely risky to advance a description of the characteristics of globalization that most closely affect education which include at the very least the following: In educational terms, there is a growing understanding that the neo-liberal version of globalization, particularly as implemented (and ideologically defended) by bilateral, multilateral, and international organizations, is reflected in an educational agenda that privileges, if not directly imposes, particular policies for evaluation