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Accordingly, national systems, in particular education systems, of nation-states have been affected critically by these processes. By reviewing the literature and analyzing some education policy documents, this paper investigates how globalization has reshaped the terrain of education policy in developing countries. Such changes in education policy of developing countries will be illustrated through the case of the Sultanate of Oman.
An argument is presented that education policy in Oman has been affected seriously by globalization processes, leading to deep shifts and changes in the ways in which education policies are plopped, implemented and evaluated. This paper will contribute to future research on similar topics. 1. Introduction Globalization as a concept has been used in both positive and negative way by different people in different situations. Everyone looks at the concept from his or her point of view and interests.
However, there is an agreement among all theorists that globalization has had enormous impact on societies at economic, political, and cultural levels. From the literature on globalization, it seems like everything is globalization in this world as a result of the transformation of the world to a small village, a lobar village. This means borders are not any longer insurmountable barriers to any kind of connections and integration between nations. It is argued in the literature that such impact of globalization reaches both developing and developed nations.
All of their governmental systems are believed to be affected by the various processes of globalization. The focus in this study is on globalization and its impact on education systems, particularly on education policy. Regarding the linkages been globalization and education, much has been written in recent years examining how education has been affected. For Copyright @ 2011, Infrasonic Society example, Margins [27] mentions that education “has become a primary medium of globalization and an incubator of its agents” (p. 9). In addition, Priestly [33] argues that national education systems have been changed quite noticeably by the processes of globalization and that most changes happening recently in education can be attributed to the effects of and responses to globalization. Correspondingly, Jones and Coleman [25] state that no education system globally can survive and Stay unaffected by globalization Indeed, policy making in education is much affected by the phenomenon of globalization.
Traditionally, policy has been produced within the authority of the nation-state. However, over the last two decades globalization has witnessed some challenges to such nation-state bound policy making in education [41]. To make it clear, globalization has resulted in the strengthened influence in policy terms of international organizations such as the UN, the World Bank, and COED. The decisions of these institutions to varying degrees today shape and constrain the policy options for any particular instantiates.
This leads us to acknowledge that globalization impacts education policy development and reduction around the world. However, these impacts are mediated in different ways across developed and developing countries with international organizations having more direct and less mediated effects on the developing nations. The main aim of this paper is to investigate how globalization has reshaped the terrain of education policy in developing countries. Such changes in education policy of developing countries will be illustrated through the case of the Sultanate of Oman.
In order to make it clear, the paper will start by clarifying the concept of globalization, and consider its nature. Then, the relationship between globalization and education policy will be uncovered by pointing out to the main global educational discourses that affect nation-states’ educational policies today. 2. Globalization Recently, the word globalization has been referenced increasingly in the media, academic literature and everyday talk [36]. Really, there has been a hot debate about globalization.
Some people 491 Literacy Information and Computer Education Journal (LICE]), Volume 2, Issue believe globalization is a dangerous phenomenon which has changed the world in negative ways. To them, globalization has brought undesirable uniqueness to society, affecting its peace. A good example of those people are Muslims who are afraid that their cultural heritage loses its identity and characteristics in the presence of a dominant Western culture. The national cultures seem at a surface level to start melting and be more homogeneous with Anglo-phone western culture beginning to dominate[20].
This is the honeymooning culture account of globalization which some also see as Synonymous with Americanization Westernizes. On the other hand, another group of people regard globalization as a fruitful phenomenon, making the roll more connected and informed than ever before. They look at it as a novel source for optimism in the world [40]. It is clear that this group see various advantages of globalization. In describing both views, Schools [44] states that ‘some people have associated “globalization” with progress, prosperity and peace.
For others, however, the word has conjured up deprivation, disaster and doom'[p. 14]. On balance, this paper argues that both beliefs are quite true that globalization has advantages and disadvantages and this depends on how it affects different and varying nations, groups, individuals and cultures. Around the world, most globalization authors, if not all, agree that globalization has had enormous impact on societies at the economic, political, and cultural levels.
According to Strontium and Monomania [47, p. 8], globalization “comprises multiple and drastic changes in all areas of social life, particularly economics and culture”. Whether it is negative or positive, the authors’ consensus on globalization impact on life shows that it has become a critical issue with dramatic consequences, requiring more and more attention The term “globalization” has been seen almost as buzzword by all researchers, conceiving different meanings.
It is a very broad and ambiguous concept. Consulting the huge literature that has been written, it is really hard to find a unified definition for it. In fact, globalization as a science overlaps and interacts with various disciplines such as economy, sociology and history. Thus, scientists and researchers of each discipline define globalization from their own point of view or from what concerns their disciplines. For instance, a global market could be a simple definition of globalization by an economist.
Despite the differences in the conceptualization, there is a great agreement among researchers that globalization has brought the world to be a small village through interconnectedness of the regions or continents. Anthony Giddiness and Roland Robertson, who were some of the first authors to write about globalization, have treated globalization, to some Copyright C 2011, Infrasonic Society extent, similarly in terms of time-space compression. According to Giddiness [1 7, p. 4] , globalization refers to “the intensification of the worldwide social relations which link distance localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away and vice versa”. In this definition, Giddiness [1 7] argues that although the world is very huge and has large geographical distances, it still appears to be a small village under the conditions of globalization. Likewise, stressing time-space compression, Robertson [42, p. ] states that globalization is “a concept which refers to the compression of the world and the intensification of consciousness of the world as a whole”. Both definitions argue that all aspects of life interaction and communication within the whole world have become easier, indicating that time and distance are not any more barriers for such interaction and communication. In the same way, Waters [50, p. 3] considers globalization as “social processes in which the constraints of geography on social and cultural arrangements recede and in which people become increasingly aware that they are receding”.
The mentioned definitions suggest a fact that the world has become almost without borders; in relation to globalization, Omaha [37] speaks of a “borderless world”. To make it clear, the concept of globalization here stands for time and space compression by indicating an increase in the frequency and speed of global exchanges of services, abort, capital, ideas, and goods. This is the hyper globalize thesis of globalization, one which suggests we are in a post-national world or at least that a oppositional world is emerging Another useful definition is also provided by Held et al. [22, p. 5], when they illustrate that globalization is a “process (or set of processes) which embodies a transformation in the spatial organization of social relations and transmogrification’s in terms of their extensive, intensity, velocity and impact- generating transcontinental or interregional flows of networks of activity, interaction and the exercise of power”. Clearly, their definition deals with globalization as a process rather than a distinct subject. They address the movement and the interaction of everything such as people, ideas and money across continents or regions, overcoming time and space.
More importantly, this definition regards power as a fundamental issue in the process of globalization. In other words, it can be understood that power plays a great role in the process of globalization, and thus control over others is a characteristic of globalization. Moreover, Held et al. [22] indicate that globalization stretches activities across the world, intensifies connectedness, speeds up interaction and impacts the local (respectively extensive, intensity, velocity and impact), which they call spermatozoa” dimensions of globalization.
Moreover, in 492 his book Modernity at Large, Argue Epidural [6] mentions a useful framework to explain the global cultural flows cutting across national borders, which comprises five dimensions: ethnographers, immediacies, technocrats, appendices and dislocates. Respectively, he prefers to define globalization as a process involving the movement of the world’s people, images, technologies, finance trade, money, and capital) and ideas (practices concerning states and other institutional policies).
In brief, this paper considers globalization as processes that make the world a small village interconnectivity. This process is marked by speedy, ideas and knowledge across borders. Let us now move to see the linkage between globalization and education policy. 3. Globalization and education policy There is no doubt that education is ranked among the chief concern of nation-states as it is playing a tremendous role in shaping and preparing children for the future in an increasingly globalizes world.
In act, much money is spent on education as a public service and this is due to its importance. To achieve the aims of education, traditionally, nation-states developed their education policy in regards to what they saw as important to their nation. Putting it differently, education policy was some time ago a mainly national affair. Nevertheless, within the wider context of globalization, education is regarded now as an international commodity [20], playing a remarkable mission in the global economy with investment in people, skills and knowledge [36].
This leads us to say that education policy is not any ore solely a national affair, but a global once in which nation-states are not any more closed to themselves. Indeed, education policy is internationalization due to the dominance of the global economy over the national politics [22; 27]. Overall, this paper looks at “education as a sector embedded within a complex system of local, national, regional and global actors, institutions and practices (politics of education)” [43, p. 20].
Simply, it argues that education policy nowadays is formed and implemented in a global context. In such global context, improving global competitiveness has been targeted by nation-states’ education policy [15]. This is a dominant globalizes human capital discourse. According to Dale [8], nation-states have recognized their priories to create and implement education policies that help them to be more economically competitive with other nations. Muddy [35] states that countries have become more competitive by working hard to enhance the productivity of the domestic labor force.
This can be achieved by introducing new educational policies, programs and reforms that prepare children to compete in the global labor force. Indeed, competitiveness among nation-states is believed not only to enhance education, but also to make entries race each other in terms of introducing new education polices full of value. Many studies have confirmed that there have been new education policies that introduce reforms in curriculum, pedagogy and evaluation, seeking to boost competitiveness among nation-states.
Examples of these reforms are engagement in international comparisons of test performance, national curriculum and productive pedagogies Iraqi and Lingual [41] confirm that globalization has reformed and redesigned the educational policy terrain. They argue that the process of globalization has deeply shifted and changed the ways in which education policies are developed, implemented and evaluated as globalization has witnessed the reworking of the nation-state – the site at which public policy was most commonly created.
Accordingly, education policy is no longer determined by actors within the nation state alone, but through various complex processes occurring globally. The literature shows that not only the education policy of developing nations have been affected the by the challenges, changes and pressures of globalization, but also those of developed nations [33]. However, this major shift in education policy precipitated by globalization, Iraqi and Lingual State, is not identical in all nation-states.
TO some extent, developed nations are believed to be less affected by globalization than developing nations [1 9; 41]. Globalization is mediated more in its impact upon developed nations than is the case in developing nations. After seeing how globalization has reshaped education policy of all nation-states, the paper will consider this impact on developing countries. 4. Education policy in developing countries Reading the literature shows that developing countries are seriously affected by globalization due to their myriad economic, social and cultural problems.
In such a global context, there is no doubt that education systems of developing countries should play a major role in their development by providing quality access to education and training for all, at least at the basic education level. Having a close look at some problems and challenges facing developing countries will make the picture more clear about the importance of education in the age of 493 By developing nations, the paper refers to the countries which have a low level of living standards.
Here, we are not only referring to development as economic growth alone, but also referring as well to there social, cultural and environmental aspects of development. In the SIN division and categorization of the world, this term, ‘developing country’ is used to describe certain regions of the world, which are Africa, South America, the Caribbean and some Asian countries (Middle East and West Asia). Sometime, these nations are called Third World, as well as less developed nations. At other times they are referred to as nations of the Global South.
According to Gamma [26], these developing regions suffer specific economic and socio-political problems such as poverty, rapid population growth, owe earnings, corruption, political instability, low literacy rates, inflation, unemployment, exploitation and many other issues (see also [16] . Indeed, there is deterioration in the quality of life in these countries compared to western, developed countries. Above all, some of these countries are worse off, as they experience increasing hunger, poverty, AIDS, war as well as low levels of education.
However, such a depressing account cannot be generalized to all developing nations. For example, the Arab Gulf countries (where Oman is located) are much better off, having less problems with poverty ND war (at least for some nations of the Middle East), but at the same time experiencing increased inflation and unemployment. Fischer [16] mentions that each region or even sometimes more specifically each country has specific problems and challenges.
He illustrates with examples from developing countries around the world: rapid population growth in India and China, instability of the economy in Latin America, rapid population growth and war in the Middle East, and high poverty and WAITS problems in Sub-Sahara Africa. It is not a major aim of this paper to describe these challenges and robbers of developing nations, but rather to go beyond that and see how education can possibly help in fighting and eliminating these endemic problems.