EDM 62106 Education Policy and Society Lecture 11 Education Policy and Globalization: In Search of...

EDM 62106Education Policy and Society

Lecture 11Education Policy and Globalization:

In Search of the Social Context for the Global-Informational Age

Debate on the Origins of Globalization

A.G. Frank & Grill (1993) World History Perspective: Originated 5000 year ago

Braudel (1979) & Wallerstein (1974) World-system Approach: Originated from the 16th century and the rise of mercantile capitalism

J. W. Meyer (1979) World Polity Perspective: Originated from the late 18th & early 19th century and the constitution of inter-state competition world polity

M. Castell (1996) & M. Carnoy (2000) Global IT Economy Perspective: Originated from 1970s

Globalization under the Information-Technology (IT) Paradigm

The infrastructure of IT paradigm: It was a series of technological breakthroughs in the mid-1970s that had laid the technological foundation of IT paradigm in global scale. The development of microelectronics: Ted Hoff, an Intel

engineer, invented the microprocessor in 1971. The development of computers

1975, Ed Robert built the first small-scale computer around the microprocessor

1976, Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs built the first commercially successful microcomputer Apple I in the garage of their parents’ home in Menlo Park, Silicon Valley


The infrastructure of IT paradigm: It was a series of technological breakthroughs in the mid-1970s that had laid the technological foundation of IT paradigm in global scale. The development of telecommunication

1970s, telecommunication turned from analog to digital transmissions

1970s, the development of optoelectronics (fiber optics) and laser transmission

These two technological breakthroughs constituted the two building blocks of the so-called Information Superhighway in the 1990s


The nature of the IT paradigm: The logic of IT network, according to Castells, can be characterized as follows. Central position of IT in production:

In industrial society, it is scientific knowledge acting and information applied to technology, which triggered the industrial revolution; but in informational society, it is technology acting on information that revokes technological breakthrough.

As a result, technology to act on information has replaced the technology on natural materials and energy to become the major driving force for advancement and competitions.

Flexibility: The fluid structure of the network and its IT basis provide the network with high degree of modifiabity, reversibility, and reconfigurability. In one word, flexibility has become one of the definitive features of IT network.


The nature of the IT paradigm: The logic of IT network, according to Castells, can be characterized as follows. Convergence: Built on the above-mentioned features of IT

network, the network also equips with high degree of compatibility and convertibility, with other systems.

Pervasiveness of IT: With its conversable and flexibility, IT has rendered such penetrating capacities that it has practically invaded into every aspects of human activities. IT has pervaded into every corner of informational society.


The nature of the IT paradigm: The logic of IT network, according to Castells, can be characterized as follows. Constitution of network logic:

“The Atom is the past. The symbol of science for the next century is the dynamical Net … Whereas the Atom represents clean simplicity, the Net channels the messy power of complexity. …The only organization capable of nonprejudiced growth, or unguided learning is a network. All other typologies limited what can happen. A network swarm is all edges and therefore open ended any way you come at it. Indeed, the network is the least structured organization that can be said to have any structure at all. …In fact a plurality of truly divergent components can only remain coherent in a network. No other arrangement – chain, pyramid, tree, circle, hub – can contain true diversity work as a whole.” (Kelly, 1995, p.25-27 quoted in Castells, 19976, note71, p. 61-62)


Definition of Globalization: In connection to the penetrating, reconfiguring and converging capacities of IT, the globalization at the end of the twentieth century has outgrown its ancestors in bridging if not annulling the temporal and spatial distances between human societies and cultures around the globe. David Harvey (1989) in The Condition of Postmodernity

defines globalization as “time-space compression”. It signifies “processes that so revolutionize the objective qualities of space and time that we are force to alter … how we represent the world to ourselves.” (p. 240)


Definition of Globalization: … Anthony Giddens (1994) indicates that “globalization is really

about the transformation of space and time. I define it as action at distance, and relate its intensifying over recent years to the means of instantaneous global communication and mass transportation.” (1994, p. 4)

Zygmunt Bauman (1998): Bauman defines globalization as “annulment of temporal/spatial distances” (1998, p.18).

Manuel Castells (1996): Castells defines globalization as a process "to overcome limits of time and space." (Castells, 1996, p. 92-93) As a result, it enables human institutions, such as the economy, and organization, such as the firm, "to work as a unit in real time on a planetary scale." (Castells, 1996, p. 92)


Definition of Globalization: … Ulrich Beck (2000): "Globalization…denotes the process

through which sovereign national states are criss-cross and undermined by transnational actors with varying prospects of power, orientations, identities and networks." (Beck, 2000, p. 11) Beck’s definition is derived from his two conceptions of modern society, namely the first and second modern societies


Definition of Globalization: … Ulrich Beck (2000): …

By the conception of first modern societies, it refers to “the explicit or implicit assumptions expressed in the actions and self-understanding of citizens, the goals of politics and the routines of social institutions.” (Beck, Bonss and Lau, 2003, p. 4) Historically speaking, it refers to the society emerged out of Europe since the 18th century. And its formulation is basically in line with the theory of modernization, which emerged from social scientists in the developed countries during the 1960s. It may be summarized into the following features. (Beck, Bonss and Lau, 2003, p. 4-5)

• “First modern societies are nation-state societies defined by territorial boundaries.”

• “First modern societies distinguish themselves by a programmatic individualization.”



By the conception of first modern societies…• First societies have a particular concept of nature founded on its

exploitation. Nature …appears as the ‘outside’ of society. Nature is conceived of as a neutral resource, which can and must be made available without limitation.”

• First modern societies unfold themselves on the basis of a scientifically defined concept of rationality that emphasizes instrumental control.”

• First modern societies understand and manage their development according to the principle of functional differentiation….The continuous differentiation of social functions through progressive specialization is assumed to lead to a better and better calibration of ends and means.”



By the conception of second modern societies, it refers to the series of social dynamics emerged since the 1970s, which fundamentally challenge the very assumptions and institutional bases of first modern societies. Its theoretical perspective has been characterized by scholars as theory of reflexive modernization. The constituent features of second modern societies are (Beck, Bonss and Lau, 2003, Pp. 6-7)

• “Globalization undermines the economic foundations of first modern society, and with it the idea of society as nation-state.”

• With the retreat of the welfare state since the 1960s, the programmatic individualization has given way to “an intensification of individualization”. “The result has been the erosion of several ascriptive patterns of collective life, each of which has gradually lost its legitimacy.”



By the conception of second modern societies, ….• “An important aspect of this expansion of individualization has been

the transformation of gender roles. …Changing the internal relations of families, producing The Normal Chaos of Love (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim, 1995) and dissolving the sexual division of labour, affects the labour market.”

• “The flexible employment practice …express …a breakdown in the full employment society, and …gainful employment.”

• “The political dynamic …is being set in motion by the projection of a global ecological crisis, which includes the acknowledgement to limited resources.”

Impacts of Globalization on Social Institutions

Castells underlines two essential consequences of globalization. They are Space of flow: Manuel Castells (1996) underlines that one of

the profound features brought about by the global-informational infrastructure is the separation of simultaneous social practices from physical contiguity, that is time-sharing social practices are no long embedded in locality of close proximity and/or within finite boundary. As a result, the traditional notion of space of places has been transformed into space of flows. In informational network, such as the internet, "no place exists by itself, since the positions are defined by flows." There is practically no boundary, no concepts of center or periphery, no beginning or end. It is all but flows.


Castells underlines two essential consequences of globalization. They are Timeless time: Castells also underlines that the global-

Informational infrastructure has also transform the conception of time in human society. Time is no longer comprehended in terms of localities around the globe according to the international time-zones. Human activities around the global can be coordinated "simultaneously" in disregard of conception of local time, such as morning, evening, late at night, etc. Furthermore, with the aid of IT, the conventional linear, sequential, diachronic concepts of time has been disturbed. "Timing becoming synchronic inflate horizon, with no beginning, no end, no sequence." (Castells, 1996, p. 74)


These two features has practically eroded the very foundations of social institutions in modern society Embeddedness in national space: Most of the social

institutions, i.e. enduring social-activity patterns, in modern society, are grown out of the competitive nation-state context originated in Europe since the eighteenth century, such as sovereign state, national-citizenship, national economy, national culture, etc. The constitution of the space of flow made possible by the global-informational infrastructure has disrupted if not destroyed the definite boundary of modern state and its entailed powers and authorities on social activities.


These two features has practically eroded the very foundations of social institutions in modern society Legitimation accumulated through time: The legitimation

underlying the enduring social-activity patterns found in institutions are accumulated through generations of national citizens. The cognitive validity and normative dignity of these institutions have been verified and justified in long lines of critical and historic events, such as revolutions, wars, natural disasters, etc. The advent of the conception of timelessness underling global-informational paradigm has disturbed national cultural heritage and disrupted the grand narrative of the national history.


Recently George Ritzer, a prominent sociologist, summarizes that “globalization is a transplanetary process or set of processes involving increasing liquidity and growing multi-dimensional flows of people, objects, places and information as well as the structures they encounter and create that are barriers to, or expedite, those flows.” (Ritzer, 2011, P. 2, emphases original)


In his definition, Ritzer underlines number of metaphorical dichotomies in understanding the phenomenon of globalization: Liquid and solid Light and heavy Flow and stock


Accordingly, the impacts of globalization on the social institutions of industrial societies, which are heavily embedded in spatial contexts (i.e. nation-state) and enduringly accumulated in temporal contexts in the 20th century, have melted into forms of liquidity, which can flow easily and lightly across the globe. Metaphorically Zygmunt Bauman has characterized the age of globalization as liquid times (2007) of liquid modernity (2000), in which we all lead a liquid life (2005) in liquid love (2003) and liquid fear (2006).

Liquidation of the Institutional Contexts of the Education Policy Studies in Modern Society

Dual roles of modern educational institution: Recapitulation Modern educational system serves as institutional

means to foster among future members the social homogeneity necessary for the integration as citizenship in the democratic nation-state

Modern educational system serves as institutional means to prepare among future members the social diversities necessary for the differentiation and division of labor in the industrial-capitalist economy

Liquidation of the Institutional Contexts of the Education Policy Studies in Modern Society

Liquidation and evaporation of temporal-spatial context of nation-state in the informational-global flows

Liquidation of temporal-spatial context of national economy and its class structure in the informational-global flows

EDM 62106Education Policy and Society

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EDM 62106 Education Policy and Society Lecture 11 Education Policy and Globalization: In Search of...

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