Abstract
Globalization is a process that has certain social, cultural, political, psychological, ecological and economical effects on societies. Education systems has been affected by developments occurring in social, economical, cultural, technological and political areas. In this chapter author discusses education paradigm and global values together. Nevertheles this chapter focuses on positive and negative aspects of globalization; dimensions of globalization and the characteristics of the information society. In addition, the effects of globalization on educational institutions are evaluated through the specific example of the Turkish Educational System. The final focus is on how to integrate the primary school curriculum with global values.
TopConcept Of Globalization
Globalization is a subtle concept, commonly discussed in recent years and assigned a number of divergent meanings due to its multifaceted nature. Hirst (2004, p.151) indicates that “globalization is part of the new conventional wisdom in political speeches in the media and in academic works. It is also used indiscriminately and in a number of different senses. Hence the danger of confused arguments based on very different conceptions of what the phenomenon is”. Bauman (1999, p.7), reports that “globalization is regarded as a key word that will open the door to the past and future, thus being transformed into a ‘trend’ expression in the form of a password”. Robertson (1992) describes the term as the downsizing of the world and an awareness of earthliness. According to him, globalization is the result of micro incidents. In fact, he explains the term in reference to five phases, namely “the germinal phase” between 1400 and 1750’s, “the incipient phase” between 1750 and 1875, “the take-off phase” between 1875 and 1925, “the struggle-for-hegemony phase” between 1925 and 1969, and “the uncertainty phase” between 1969 and 1992. According to him, although it can be traced back to such early periods, it was not until the mid-1980’s that the academic world started to understand its importance and conduct studies on it. Presenting a unique perspective, Knorr-Cetina (2000) argues that globalization is not only an external phenomenon that leads to rapid advances in information and communications technology but also an internal one that causes individuals to perceive the world in different ways.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Globalization: Globalization can be defined as a process that has certain social, cultural, political, psychological, ecological and economical effects on societies, brings new concepts such as de-spatilazition and de-temporalization into literature and increases the interdependency of countries in various forms.
Information Society: It is a new social order that covers any kind of social change and improvement taking place within the social structure of the 21st century; an order of such a time that, due to rapid improvements in information and communication technologies, its primary objective is the socialization of individuals as endowed with certain virtues specified by globalization, such as lifelong learning, being critical, being imaginative and thinking analytically.
Negative Aspects of globalization: Despite the frequent emphasis on the preservation of local identities and the frequent occurrence of the discourse of “multiculturalism;” such conflicts as the existence of certain programs that promote English as the world language, and the monotonization of societies in their thoughts, clothes, lifestyles and so on due to the overwhelming influence of Western culture can be stated as some negative aspects of globalization.
Curriculum: It is the unity of multiple subjects ranging from the programming of actions to be taken during the course of formal education with a particular focus on ordering and within a particular framework of objectives and behaviors to the preparing of a consistent and coherent content; and each of these subjects is bounded by the impacts of cultural values.
Dimensions of Globalization: Globalization is a multidimensional process that has sociocultural, economical, political, technological, ecological and psychological dimensions.
Information and Communications Technology: As some academicians emphasize, it is the next stage in the historical development of human beings, coming along in the array of history subsequently to the Industrial Revolution that replaced Agricultural Societies which had been the second stage in the development of human beings following Primitive Societies.
Positive Aspects of globalization: Positive aspects of globalization include that, through the developments in information and communication technologies, it encourages individuals to think globally yet at the same time it allows them to keep their local characteristics, in turn contributing to the repairing of inequalities between individuals by providing them with an opportunity of self-development.