Globalization and Educational Change

  • Amy Stuart Wells
  • Sibyll Carnochan
  • Julie Slayton
  • Ricky Lee Allen
  • Ash Vasudeva
Chapter

Abstract

There is no greater context for educational change than that of globalization, nor no grander way of conceptualizing what educational change is about. Wells and her colleagues analyze how economic and political globalization are affecting the identity and independence of nation states, and the ways in which public education (like public health and welfare) are undergoing change within the states. They acknowledge that there is no agreement about how political and economic globalization have affected public education precisely, and they review and evaluate different theoretical claims about the globalization effect: from neo liberals, liberal-progressives (or modernizers), realists and critical theorists. The paradoxical juxtaposition of educational markets, privatization and decentralization with standardization of assessment and growing emphases on nationhood in the agendas of school reform is analyzed through these different approaches to globalization theory.

This chapter also looks at the social and cultural effects of globalization on education again from different theoretical standpoints in terms of the growth of communism and the spread of visual and eletronic imagery. Wells and her colleagues examine the consequences of these influences for teaching and learning, the curriculum, and the ability to deal with difference. Globalization is reshaping students lives through market influences and symbolic concerns with identity and nationhood. Wells and her colleagues demonstrate how the immensely broad phenomenon of globalization is having very concrete effects on contemporary agendas of educational reform.

Keywords

Educational System International Monetary Fund Global Economy National Culture Educational Reform 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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Copyright information

© Springer 2005

Authors and Affiliations

  • Amy Stuart Wells
    • 1
  • Sibyll Carnochan
    • 1
  • Julie Slayton
    • 2
  • Ricky Lee Allen
    • 2
  • Ash Vasudeva
    • 2
  1. 1.University of California Los AngelesLos Angeles
  2. 2.UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information ScienceUSA

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