A World Culture of Schooling
01 Jan 2003-pp 1-26
TL;DR: The authors argue that schools around the world are becoming more similar over time, rather than diverging, and that schools are converging toward a single global model, not diverging from their original European sources.
Abstract: Is there one global culture of schooling, or many? Are school systems around the world diverging from their original European sources, or are they converging toward a single model?1 This book opens a dialogue between two very different perspectives on schooling around the world. On the one hand, anthropologists and many scholars in comparative education emphasize national variation and, beyond that, variation from district to district and from classroom to classroom. From that point of view, the nearly 200 national school systems in the world today represent some 200 different and diverging cultures of schooling. On the other hand, sociology’s “institutionalists,” or world culture theorists, argue that not only has the model of modern mass education spread from a common source, but schools around the world are becoming more similar over time.2 According to world culture theory, rather than diverging, schools are converging toward a single global model.
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TL;DR: The major global educational discourses are about the knowledge economy and technology, lifelong learning, global migration or brain circulation, and neoliberalism as mentioned in this paper, and the major institutions contributing to global education discourses and actions are the World Bank, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the World Trade Organization, the United Nations, and UNESCO.
Abstract: Research on globalization and education involves the study of intertwined worldwide discourses, processes, and institutions affecting local educational practices and policies. The four major theoretical perspectives concerning globalization and education are world culture, world systems, postcolonial, and culturalist. The major global educational discourses are about the knowledge economy and technology, lifelong learning, global migration or brain circulation, and neoliberalism. The major institutions contributing to global educational discourses and actions are the World Bank, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the World Trade Organization, the United Nations, and UNESCO. International testing, in particular the Trends in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), and instruction in English as the language of commerce are contributing to global uniformity of national curricula. Critics of current global trends support educatio...
440 citations
Cites background from "A World Culture of Schooling"
...…global flow, there are other educational ideas besides human capital, such as religious, Freirian, human rights, and environmental education, and multiple forms of progressive education (Anderson-Levitt, 2003; Benhabib, 2002; Schriewer & Martinez, 2004; Spring, 2004, 2006; Steiner-Khamsi, 2004)....
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...The third interpretation emphasizes cultural variations and the borrowing and lending of educational ideas within a global context (Anderson-Levitt, 2003; Benhabib, 2002; Hayhoe & Pan, 2001b; Schriewer & Martinez, 2004; Steiner-Khamsi, 2004)....
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...However, globalization of education does not mean that all schools are the same, as indicated by studies of differences between the local and the global (Anderson-Levitt, 2003)....
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore how the concept of glocalization, a meaningful integration of local and global forces, can help educational leaders inform and enhance their pedagogy and practice.
Abstract: This article synthesizes and presents literature in support of the argument that the preparation and practice of educational leadership must be rethought to be relevant for 21st-century schools. Specifically, the authors explore how the concept of glocalization, a meaningful integration of local and global forces, can help educational leaders inform and enhance their pedagogy and practice. They suggest that contemporary educational leaders must develop glocal literacy in nine specific knowledge domains: political literacy, economic literacy, cultural literacy, moral literacy, pedagogical literacy, information literacy, organizational literacy, spiritual and religious literacy, and temporal literacy. Furthermore, they explain that each of these domains of literacy is dynamic, interconnected, and can be influenced by the discrete agency of educational leaders.
171 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that such research, while failing to support its own claims, actually produces world culture, as its assumptions and parameters create the very image of consensus and homogeneity that world culture theorists expect scholars to accept in faith.
Abstract: World culture theory seeks to explain an apparent convergence of education through a neoinstitutionalist lens, seeing global rationalization in education as driven by the logic of science and the myth of progress. While critics have challenged these assumptions by focusing on local manifestations of world-level tendencies, such critique is comfortably accommodated within world culture theory. We approach the debate from a fresh perspective by examining its ideological foundations. We also highlight its shift from notions of myth and enactment toward advocacy for particular models, and we show that world culture theory can become normative, while obscuring our view of policy convergence. Finally, we critique the methods and evidence in world culture research. We argue that such research, while failing to support its own claims, actually produces world culture, as its assumptions and parameters create the very image of consensus and homogeneity that world culture theorists expect scholars to accept—in faith...
154 citations
TL;DR: This article analyzed changes to the network of international student mobility in higher education over a 10-year period (1999-2008) and found that flows of international students have become more unequal and centralized.
Abstract: This article analyzes changes to the network of international student mobility in higher education over a 10-year period (1999–2008). International student flows have increased rapidly, exceeding 3 million in 2009, and extensive data on mobility provide unique insight into global educational processes. The analysis is informed by three theoretical conceptualizations of globalization: neoliberalism, critical perspectives (e.g., world-systems analysis and poststructuralism), and world culture theory. Network analysis demonstrates that flows of international students have become more unequal and centralized. Comparisons with other global networks show that international student flows are closely related to world trade and, increasingly, international governmental organizations. While confirming the importance of international governmental organizations in the globalization of education, the study highlights the need for theoretical work that accounts for the nexus between international institutions and the c...
102 citations
TL;DR: It is concluded that cross-cultural variation exists in the use of overimitation during childhood in the Aka hunter-gatherers and neighboring Ngandu horticulturalists of the Congo Basin rainforest in the southern Central African Republic.
Abstract: Studies in Western cultures have observed that both children and adults tend to overimitate, copying causally irrelevant actions in the presence of clear causal information. Investigation of this feature in non-Western groups has found little difference cross-culturally in the frequency or manner with which individuals overimitate. However, each of the non-Western populations studied thus far has a history of close interaction with Western cultures, such that they are now far removed from life in a hunter-gatherer or other small-scale culture. To investigate overimitation in a context of limited Western cultural influences, we conducted a study with the Aka hunter-gatherers and neighboring Ngandu horticulturalists of the Congo Basin rainforest in the southern Central African Republic. Aka children, Ngandu children, and Aka adults were presented with a reward retrieval task similar to those performed in previous studies, involving a demonstrated sequence of causally relevant and irrelevant actions. Aka children were found not to overimitate as expected, instead displaying one of the lowest rates of overimitation seen under similar conditions. Aka children copied fewer irrelevant actions than Aka adults, used a lower proportion of irrelevant actions than Ngandu children and Aka adults, and had less copying fidelity than Aka adults. Measures from Ngandu children were intermediate between the two Aka groups. Of the participants that succeeded in retrieving the reward, 60% of Aka children used emulation rather than imitation, compared to 15% of Ngandu children, 11% of Aka adults, and 0% of Western children of similar age. From these results, we conclude that cross-cultural variation exists in the use of overimitation during childhood. Further study is needed under a more diverse representation of cultural and socioeconomic groups in order to investigate the cognitive underpinnings of overimitation and its possible influences on social learning and the biological and cultural evolution of our species.
93 citations
References
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors analyze the nation-state as a worldwide institution constructed by worldwide cultural and associational processes, developing four main topics: (1) properties of nation-states that result from their exogenously driven construction, including isomorphism, decoupling, and expansive structuration; (2) processes by which rationalistic world culture affects national states; (3) characteristics of world society that enhance the impact of world culture on national states and societies, including conditions favoring the diffusion of world models, expansion of world level associations, and rationalized scientific and professional
Abstract: The authors analyze the nation‐state as a worldwide institution constructed by worldwide cultural and associational processes, developing four main topics: (1) properties of nation‐states that result from their exogenously driven construction, including isomorphism, decoupling, and expansive structuration; (2) processes by which rationalistic world culture affects national states; (3) characteristics of world society that enhance the impact of world culture on national states and societies, including conditions favoring the diffusion of world models, expansion of world‐level associations, and rationalized scientific and professional authority; (4) dynamic features of world culture and society that generate expansion, conflict, and change, especially the statelessness of world society, legitimation of multiple levels of rationalized actors, and internal inconsistencies and contradictions.
3,819 citations
Book•
15 Oct 1991
TL;DR: Hannerz as mentioned in this paper presents the globalization of culture as a process of cultural diffusion, polycentralism, and local innovation, focusing on periods of intensive cultural productivity in Vienna, Calcutta, and San Francisco.
Abstract: A rich, witty, and accessible introduction to the anthropology of contemporary cultures,Cultural Complexity emphasizes that culture is organized in terms of states, markets, and movements. Hannerz pays special attention to the interplay between the centralizing agencies of culture, such as schools and media, and the decentering diversity of subcultures, and considers the special role of cities as the centers of cultural growth. Hannerz discusses cultural process in small-scale societies, the concept of subcultures, and the economics and politics of culture. Finally, he presents the twentieth-century globalization of culture as a process of cultural diffusion, polycentralism, and local innovation, focusing on periods of intensive cultural productivity in Vienna, Calcutta, and San Francisco.
1,399 citations
Book•
01 Jan 2001
TL;DR: In this article, the authors compare primary education in India and the United States of America, and compare the two countries' primary education systems, policies, and histories, and present a comparison of the two systems.
Abstract: Liset of Plates. List of Figures. List of Tables. Acknowledgements. Note. Introduction. Part I: Settings: 1. The Comparative Context. Part II: Systems, Policies and Histories: 2. Primary Education in France. 3. Primary Education in Russia. 4. Primary Education in India. 5. Primary Education in the United States of America. 6. Primary Education in England. 7. Primary Education and the State. Part III: Schools: 8. Buildings and People. 9. The Idea of a School. 10. Beyond the Gates. Part IV: Classrooms:11. Comparing Teaching. 12. Lesson Structure and Form. 13. Organisation, Task and Activity. 14. Judgement, Routine, Rule and Ritual. 15. Interaction, Time and Pace. 16. Learning Discourse. Part V: Reflections: 17. Culture and Pedagogy. Notes. Bibliography.Index.
947 citations
TL;DR: In the field of international law, history, anthropology, and sociology, the role of norms of behavior, intersubjective understandings, culture, identity, and other social features of political life has been explored as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: International relations scholars have become increasingly interested in norms of behavior, intersubjective understandings, culture, identity, and other social features of political life. However, our investigations largely have been carried out in disciplinary isolation. We tend to treat our arguments that these things "matter" as discoveries and research into social phenomena as forays into uncharted territory. However, scholars within the fields of international law, history, anthropology, and sociology have always known that social realities influence behavior, and each field has incorporated these social constructions in different ways into research programs. Sociologists working in organization theory have developed a particularly powerful set of arguments about the roles of norms and culture in international life that pose direct challenges to realist and liberal theories in political science. Their arguments locate causal force in an expanding and deepening Western world culture that emphasizes Weberian rationality as the means to both
926 citations
01 Jan 2006
TL;DR: Allington and Pressley as discussed by the authors discuss skills emphasis, meaning emphasis, and balanced reading instruction for children to learn to read and recognize words in the primary grade and discuss the need for increased comprehension instruction.
Abstract: Introduction to the Fourth Edition, Richard L. Allington Introduction to the Third Edition, Michael Pressley 1. Skills Emphasis, Meaning Emphasis, and Balanced Reading Instruction: A Short History 2. Skilled Reading 3. Children Who Experience Problems in Learning to Read 4. Before Reading Words Begins 5. Learning to Recognize Words 6. Fluency 7. Vocabulary 8. Expert Literacy Teaching in the Primary Grades, with Ruth Wharton-McDonald 9. The Need for Increased Comprehension Instruction 10. Motivation and Literacy 11. Concluding Reflections Appendix: Landmarks in Development of Literacy Competence (or, What Happens When) Author Index Subject Index
808 citations