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INTERCOM 10

GLOBALISATION AND INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION - a personal view by Jim Cambridge

What is the relationship between international education and the processes of globalisation? This question became very topical recently with the publication of interviews in The Times newspaper with Professor George Walker, Director General of the International Baccalaureate Organisation and Visiting Professor at the University of Bath, and Dr Nick Tate, of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority.
Dr Tate expressed scepticism at the prospect of the IB becoming widespread in the context of maintained schools in England and Wales. He considered that it would be "pushing globalisation one big step further forward if a lot of people were taking what is essentially an international qualification not devised with [British] society and culture in mind."


	"One of the things that distinguishes the nation state is the character of its education system. It would be pushing globalisation one big step further forward if a lot of people were taking what is essentially an international qualification not devised with this society and culture in mind. There is no [IB] course in British history, for example, and English is very much about world literature." Dr. Nick Tate The Times 5 January 2000

He pointed out that there is no IB course in British history and that English is very much about world literature. On the other hand, Professor Walker said that the IB "used to be seen as a continental import, something peculiar to international schools and expatriates. But this is no longer the case. Schools of all kinds increasingly operate in an international environment, and as frontiers break down the IB seems less alien and more like a sensible option."

Globalisation has been described as "the widening, deepening and speeding up of world-wide interconnectedness in all aspects of contemporary social life, from the cultural to the criminal, the financial to the spiritual". However, it is a misconception to think of globalisation as a single discrete phenomenon for three contrasting currents can be identified under this heading; the hyperglobalist, sceptical and transformationalist approaches.

There are also contrasting views of the nature and purposes of international schools and international education. To some educators, international education is a means of changing the world by increasing international understanding through bringing together young people from many different countries. An alternative view of international education is that it is a pragmatic response to the needs of globally mobile families, particularly in situations in which no single national grouping is sufficiently large to make a school dedicated to its own use an economically viable proposition.

Multiculturalism

It may be considered that international schools, however they are construed, are sites of multiculturalism in education. To an extent this may be the case, in the sense that there is pluralism in terms of the national origins of the participants. However, in the memorable phrase of Susan Khin Zaw, multiculturalism in education can be "a substantial monoculturalism as to values, mitigated by tolerance of exotic detail". Individuals may have plural national origins, which they express in terms of national festivals, costumes and food, but they also espouse similar educational values. This latter observation is not surprising when one considers the needs of a clientele which is mobile and with a high rate of turnover. They expect international schools to provide continuity in their children's education as they move from country to country. Like the providers of other franchised global brand names, international schools must provide a reliable service throughout the world.

Hyperglobalist thesis

For the hyperglobalisers, history and economics have come together at the end of the twentieth century to create a new order of relations in which states are either converging economically and politically, or are being made irrelevant by the activities of transnational business. Economic policies are determined more by markets than by governments and, in the economically developed portions of the world at least, the telecommunications media have facilitated the spread of global mass culture. We wear the same fashions and watch the same television shows while grazing on the same fast foods. The hyperglobal trend towards the formation of one single world order is represented in international education by those who see a system of education which transcends national frontiers. The view of international education as an ideological construct, as a force for creating a better world by overcoming national differences, can be interpreted in the context of the hyperglobal view of globalisation. Yet this view is also ambiguous and apolitical because various critics of the hyperglobalist thesis argue either that it is an apology for the current dominance of neo-liberal free market capitalism, on the one hand, or for the spread of social democratic regulation of markets, on the other.

Sceptical thesis

The sceptical thesis makes a contrast between globalisation and the internationalisation of trade. Sceptics argue that historical evidence indicates that the world is not becoming a single market but that it is the development of regional economic blocs and the facilitation of trade between countries which has extended. For the sceptics, the economic era in which the Gold Standard between national currencies prevailed represents a far more globalised economic system than exists today. Internationalisation and globalisation are contradictory trends, since international trade is strengthened by the existence of nation states whose policies actively regulate and promote it. Of course, the formation of regional trading blocs results in two classes of countries; those countries which are members of the blocs, and those which are not. The increasing internationalisation of trade between some countries has led to the marginalisation of others, notably the poor economies of the southern hemisphere. Against this analysis, we can interpret the development of international schools as encapsulated outposts of other national cultures, and the development of international education as a pragmatic response to economic circumstances where a school serving a single national grouping is unviable. Under such conditions, globally mobile communities of workers from different countries must pool their educational resources.

Transformationalist thesis

The third approach to understanding globalisation sees a close relationship between the global and the local. To adherents of the transformationalist thesis, reference to the economic marginalisation of whole countries is unjustifiable, since "the familiar core-periphery hierarchy is no longer a geographic but a social division of the world economy ... North and South, First World and Third World are no longer out there but nestled within all the worlds major cities". Globalisation is a process of reordering of interregional relations, but it embraces both integration and fragmentation. Our lives are influenced not only by global corporations but also by locally devolved agencies. Children from all over the world can be next to each other in the same classroom.

IBO - hyperglobalist, sceptical or transformationalist?

George Walker was reported in the December 1999 edition of IB World as saying that "there has been a shift in its early role of creating something for a niche group of mobile, transient, international students. He argued that the IBO is shifting its perspective, from seeing itself as a provider of good programmes for international schools to realising it must convince even those who are not international of the importance of this kind of education. This means convincing people that international education is the education of the future".


	"The IB used to be seen as a continental import, something peculiar to international schools and expatriates. But this is no longer the case. Schools of all kinds increasingly operate in an international environment, and as frontiers break down the IB seems less alien and more like a sensible option." Prof. George Walker The Times 5 January 2000

Does this indicate evidence of a hyperglobalist, sceptical or transformationalist perspective of globalisation within the IBO? The hyperglobalist perspective appears to have always been part of the mission of the IBO to the extent that the organisation has identified itself with serving an international expatriate clientele. The history of the IBO, as David Sutcliffe has pointed out, is intimately linked to the development of the United World Colleges movement whose aims may be interpreted as hyperglobalist, transcending national and political frontiers. On the other hand, the development of the regions and their differing levels of influence may be interpreted as a move away from seeing the world as a unitary global whole, towards a geopolitical segmentation of the international education market. The reference to a "niche group of mobile, transient, international students" may be interpreted as indicative of the existence of a sceptical tendency side by side with hyperglobalism.

George Walker was also reported as saying that that "many national schools are now seeing international education as the path of the future, but there is a dichotomy here that needs exploring: some people seem to think that you have either international or national education and that national is not good - which is simply not right". Should this be interpreted as a move towards a transformationalist position for the IBO? Is a synergy proposed between international and national education systems which will lead to the transformation of both? A perennial topic for argument among participants on MA courses on international education at the University of Bath is whether a multinational, multicultural group of pupils at a school situated in a national educational system can be participants in international education. A transformationalist response to this question would be that they can, since the local and the global can be brought together to inform and influence each other.

To sum up, the activities of international schools can be interpreted in terms of three contrasting approaches to globalisation. The IBO, as an exemplar of international education, can be identified with each approach, but there appears to be a trend towards identification of itself particularly as an agent of global transformation.

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