The document discusses the impact of globalization and transnational organizations on education. It notes that transnational corporations and organizations: 1) Compete with schools for influence over children through mass media. 2) Promote reducing state control of public education and increasing private sector involvement in education policy and funding. 3) Influence education policy through the World Bank by providing loans conditional on adopting certain education programs and consulting. This increased involvement of transnational actors in education policy and funding has shifted education's focus towards vocational skills over social values and national priorities.

1. Education, Markets and
Globalisation
Presenter: Dr Muavia Gallie (PhD)
Lecture 5 - 8
Week 2: 15 - 18 February 2010
1
Introduction
1. Assignment (500 - 550 words) - Choose a topic on
Globalisation from within your field of specialisation;
2. Design and produce an A3 poster on the assignment;
3. Work in groups of three (3) - produce your own work (different
topics) - read each other’s essay and make constructive
suggestions - final product must be marked out of 10 -
declaration - hand in on 8 March 2010 by 14h00;
4. Test on 4 March 2010, at 17h30 at Groenkloof, Exam in June;
5. References of articles on Globalisation on page 37.
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2. Lecture 5
Thinking Globally – Cohen R. and
Kennedy P. (2000)
• Changing concepts of space and time;
1. An increasing volume of cultural
interactions;
2. The commonality of problems facing all
the world’s inhabitants.
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5.1.1 Changing concepts of space and time
• Leading Globalisation theorist – Robertson (1992,
p.8,27) – cultures and societies are being
squeezed together
• Driven towards increased mutual interaction;
• “Compression of the world” – world is being one
place and one system;
• Therefore – need a shift in “space and time”;
• Harvey (1989, p.240-254) – pre-modern society –
space was understood in concrete localities;
movement was dangerous and difficult, safer to
remain in they enjoy fixed and unchanging rights
and obligations;
• However, important changes have altered this: 4
2

3. 5.1.2 Alteration to understanding of space and time
1. The beginnings of Arab, Chinese, Pacific Islander and
European exploration and navigation of the world;
2. Copernicus’s theory, published in 1543, which
established that the sun, not the earth, was the centre
of our planetary system;
3. The discovery of the rules of perspectives in visual art;
4. The rise of humanist, people-centred, ways of thinking
about human life in place of a solely religious pre-
occupation spurred by Renaissance thinking;
5. The increasing use of the mechanical printing press;
6. The advent of the mechanical clock;
7. The unfolding revolution of transport technology
associated with industrialisation. 5
5.1.3 Example: Transport technology
Changes in the speed of transport, 1500 – 1960s
1500 – 1840 1850 – 1930 1950s 1960s
Horse-drawn Steamships Propeller air Jet air
coaches/ sail and
ships locomotives
16 kph 56 – 104 kph 480 – 640 kph 800 – 1120 kph
Source: Dicken (1992, p.104)
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3

4. 5.1.4 Time-space compression
Implication of this shift?
• Time and distance have dwindled in significance as forces
shaping human actions;
• Less bound by ties to specific places and events;
• Both space and time have become freely available for us to
manipulate and control;
• We can accomplish far more things in any given unit of time
and events crowd in upon us at an ever-greater speed;
• With life becoming faster, so distance is conquered;
• We judge distance i.t.o. time required to complete a journey,
not by the number of kilometres between two points;
• No one people is wholly confined to one place and mass travel
enables many to experience other cultures;
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5.1.5 Time-space compression
Implication of this shift? (cont.)
• Our social horizons are indefinitely extended;
• We are less dependent upon particular people and
fixed social relationships;
• Mass television, satellite communication;
• World population is placed on same stage;
• Emergence of global movements;
• But changes are not experience equally;
• Without the technology, fewer distance in kilometres
could be more distant that far greater kilometres in real
terms.
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4

5. 5.2.1 Increasing Cultural Interaction
• Culture = all the modes of thought,
behaviour and artefacts that are transmitted
from generation to generation, by example,
education and public record;
• Specific intellectual, artistic and aesthetic
attainments in music, painting, literature,
film and other forms of expression;
• Culture is rich in imagery, metaphors, signs
and symbols;
• Also ‘abstract systems of understanding’ –
computer language 9
5.2.2 Increasing Cultural Interaction
• Culture and knowledge were acquired and
reinforced mainly in informal, everyday learning
with close family, church and community life;
• Diffusion to other social contexts took place very
slowly and in a fragmented way;
• Cultural interaction arising from increased contact
between peoples have gradually exposed all
humans to meanings in other societies;
• Immense expansion in the scope and spread of
abstract knowledge linked to science and growing
availability of mass, formal education.
10
5

6. 5.2.3 Increasing Cultural Interaction
These cultural interaction has generated several
important consequences:
• Can use cultural meanings across societies;
• Greater access to cultural meanings;
• Can obtain full pictures of other lifestyles;
• Possible to know about other people’s culture;
• Electronic mass media affect all those who are
exposed to it;
• Made conscious that we live in a pluralist, multi-
cultural world – invited to participate;
• Western and USA influences dominate the volume
and character of culture and knowledge flow. 11
5.3.1 Commonality of problems
• Tsunami, earthquakes, wars, etc. – reminder
of our common humanity;
• Our vulnerabilities to accident and misfortune
– and the existential truth that we all inhabit
the same small planet;
• Our choice not only rebound on our own
lives, they directly affect the lives of others far
away;
• Often unaware of this and do not intend our
action to harm distant strangers.
12
6

7. 5.3.2 Commonality of problems
• Global problems require global
solutions;
• Can’t act alone: border problems, radio-
active accidents, currencies
speculation, drug-trafficking, etc;
• Only collaboration between
governments and regulation at the
global level can provide genuine
solutions;
• Problem for ‘rich and poor’.
13
Lecture 6
Thinking Globally – Cohen R. and
Kennedy P. (2000)
4. Growing inter-connections and inter-
dependencies;
5. A network of increasingly powerful
transnational actors and organisation.
14
7

8. 5.4.1 Growing inter-connections and inter-dependencies
• Localities, countries, companies, social movements,
professional and other groups and citizens are woven into a
dense network of transnational exchanges and affiliations;
• Castells 1996 – we live in a ‘network society’;
• They have burst over territorial borders;
• The power of knowledge flows ‘takes precedence over the
flows of power’
• No clear cut separation between national and international life;
• International system consists of different layers of interactions
and connections;
• ‘Locality and geography will disappear altogether, the world will
genuinely be one place and the national state will be
redundant’;
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5.4.2 Growing inter-connections and inter-dependencies
Greater need for ensure that:
• Financial structure and creation of credit;
• Knowledge structure maintenance;
• Increase in technology across nations;
• Limited choice ‘not to go global’ be protected;
• Regulative control and democratic
accountability not to lead to ecological
destruction, social fragmentation and poverty
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8

9. 5.5 Transnational actors and
organisations
• Transnational corporations (TNCs);
• International governmental organisations
(IGOs);
• International non-governmental organisations
(INGOs);
• Global social movements (GSMs);
• Diasporas and stateless people;
• Other transnational actors (migrants;
international tourists; professionals; media
personalities; corporation personnel;
students, diplomats, etc.)
17
5.6 Synchronisation of all
dimensions
• All dimensions – economic, technological,
political, social and cultural – come together,
reinforcing and magnifying the impact of the
other;
• Economic – governments lost power;
• Technology – enormous growth in media
and information;
• Political – concern beyond borders;
• Social – international movements;
• Culture – expansion of cultural flow. 18
9

10. Lecture 7
Globalism: A new phenomenon
1. Thinking about ourselves collectively while identifying
with all humanity;
2. The end to one-way flows and the growth of multi-
cultural awareness;
3. The empowerment of self-awareness social actors;
4. The broadening of identities.
5. The origins of supra-national organisations;
6. Multi-national and trans-national corporations
19
7.1 Thinking about ourselves collectively
• Humankind – thinking about ourselves
collectively;
• Focusing on our shared concern;
• Cementing that all people have basic
human rights;
• Mr Nelson Mandela is embodying this
concept;
• Ubuntu – a person is a person through
other people
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10

11. 7.2 A network of increasingly powerful transnational
actors and organisation
• We are possessing the technology to
support the choice of sharing the
governance of our planet rather than
fighting with one another to see who will
be in charge – Perlmutter 1991, p.901;
• The era of one-sided cultural and
political flows is over;
• Cooperation around a set of shared
values and structures is possible,
necessary and desirable.
21
7.3 Reflexive social actors and modernity
• Growing number of social actors who are
empowered to exercise Reflexivity in their
daily lives;
• Reflexive individuals tend to be self-
conscious and knowledgeable – They seek to
shape they own lives while redefining the
world around them;
• Rosenau (1990, p.13) – ‘today’s person-in-
the-street are not longer as uninvolved,
ignorant and manipulable with respect of
world affairs as were their forbears’.
22
11

12. 7.4 Broadening of identities
• No person or institution can avoid contact
with, and some knowledge of other culture;
• How do we feel about other cultures in the
light of our participation in the particular and
the local?
• We can respond by:
- Selection: select only what pleases us;
- Adaptation: participation in local and global;
- Resistance: resist due to suspicion that
these may disrupt local values and customs
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7.6 Origins of Supra-national
organisations
• Organisations who existence does not depend on the good will of a
nation-state;
• Number and variety is large:
- religious organisations;
- associations like Rotary International;
- charitable and relief organisations like International Red Cross;
- scholarly organisations like World Council of Comparative Education
Societies;
- professional and scientific associations;
- international “development” agencies like World Bank, WHO;
- international military alliances like NATO;
- international political and juridical bodies like UN Security Council and
General Assembly, World Court, European Parliament;
- regulatory international economic relations like WTO
• Survival not dependent on one nation – other national organisations
owe their existence and continuation to decisions by national
governments. 24
12

13. 7.7 Multi-national and Trans-
national corporations
• They are a special kind of supra-national
organisation;
• Often exclusive membership and attitude of
competition;
• Focus on maximising their market share at
the expense of all others;
• Others focus on relationship of cooperation
with others, seeking maximisation of the
common good.
25
Lecture 8
Impact of supra-national organisations on education (MCGinn, N. –
1996)
1. Competition between the mass media controlled by trans-national
corporations and schools;
2. Stock of human resources i.t.o. the ability of education system to
match demands of economy;
3. Promotion of reduced state control of public education;
4. Participation in decision about the organisation and content of
education systems;
5. Offerings in exchange for influence on policy;
6. World Bank directly affect policy and practice in education;
7. Their quality concerns has to do with knowledge and skills required by
the corporations;
8. New metaphor for the organisations of education;
9. First and second impact of shifts in education;
26
10. Conclusion.
13

14. 8.1 Competition between the mass media controlled
by trans-national corporations and schools
• Ample evidence of the impact of advertising from
supra-national organisations on consumption
patterns;
• Example – Nestle – advertise about the wonders
of infant formulas significantly reducing breast-
feeding in Africa, and contribute to increase in
infant mortality;
• Heroes of children – from films and videos – their
values are not the same as those taught in
schools;
• Growing gap between values of education system
and mass media.
27
8.2 Stock of human resources i.t.o. the ability of
education system to match demands of economy
• Ability of education system to match demands
of economy;
• Easy movement of sites for cost-effectiveness
makes it difficult for education systems to
respond to demands;
• Educator argument = should make education
more general;
• Trans-nationals prefer training that
specifically respond to their requirements.
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14

15. 8.3 Promotion of reduced state control of public education
• UNESCO encouraging regionalisation of education
for 20 years;
• World Bank actively promotes decentralisation and
privatisation;
• Both are about reduced state control over content
and operations;
• Increase involvement of groups that do not seek to
maximise the welfare of the national community;
• Libertarian ideology = use of markets instead of
politics to regulate social affairs;
• Sometimes ‘decentralisation of functions’ but
‘centralisation of decision making’;
• Example: UK – control over management, but central
government took control over curriculum.
29
8.4 Participation in decision about the organisation
and content of education systems
• European community direct involvement in
national decisions about the organisation and
content of higher education;
• Mexico – government signed a compact with the
“productive sector” that gives them direct role in
planning of education;
• Includes joint evaluation of existing study plans in
technological institutions to make them more
adequate to reality and needs of national industry;
• Control of technological institutes is decentralised,
and productive sector will participate in governing
boards. 30
15

16. 8.5 Trans-national corporations’ offerings in
exchange for influence on policy
• Funding for the general education budget;
• Funding for specific studies or projects;
• Provision of physical facilities;
• Conferences or travel to raise teacher
awareness of certain problems;
• Donation or subsidised sale of books and
equipment;
• Provision of instructors for certain types of
training;
• Promises to employ graduates of certain
kinds of programmes;
• Technical expertise in policy formulation and
planning. 31
8.6 World Bank directly affect policy and practice in education
• Providing loans only for Bank-specified
programmes;
• Establishing conditions that must be met before
loans can be implemented;
• Influencing the hiring of foreign consultants to help
in implementation;
• Providing overseas training and education in
institutions approved by the Bank;
• Organising communication among policy-makers
in various countries;
• Using research to justify recommendations for
specific programmes;
• Samoff argues – their research excludes national
unity, values and participation.
32
16

17. 8.7 Their quality concerns has to do with
knowledge and skills required by the corporations
• Their involvement led to narrowing of curriculum;
• Their trend is towards “vocationalisation” of
education, with de-emphasise on social
integration;
• USA = these are sold with argument that they will
solve problems of unemployment;
• Business-education alliance are not accompanied
by heave private sector investment, but rather
diversion of public funds from traditional education
programmes;
• Corporations spending more of their own money
on non-formal training programmes located
outside the public education.
33
8.8 New metaphor for the organisations of education
• Corporations have moved to “flexible”
production (move rapidly from country to
country in search of lower labour cost, and
favourable tax breaks);
• Key differences in new production:
- Design jobs to insure that workers learn
while doing;
- Bring designers and producers together with
clients – “just-in-time production”;
- Workers are no longer specialised but
instead require a broad range of skills;
- Plants closer to consumer – “global
localisation”.
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17

18. 8.9 First and second impact of shifts in education
• Schools organised by communities of craft workers
had taught science as a set of processes by which
one could generate his or her own discoveries –
Common school of the State specified what
knowledge would be learned, and science was taught
as a body of knowledge rather than as a method of
inquiry;
• Professors will still tell students what to write in their
notebooks, but new ways of producing and learning
will be employed as well;
• Still give students a grounding in concepts and facts
of the disciplines, but more attention given to teaching
methods of learning;
• Group learning will be privileged over individual
learning. 35
8.10 Conclusion
• Focus from ‘teaching’ to ‘facilitation of
learning;
• Emphasis on ‘construction of knowledge
through action over discovery of existing
facts’;
• Learning is a process for producing
rather than acquiring knowledge
(Gibbons et al, 1994).
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19. Contact details:
• E-mail: muavia@mweb.co.za;
– Or muavia.gallie@mweb.co.za;
• Fax: 0866720520
• Powerpoint website: www.slideshare.net
Thank You! 37
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