Globalization and Education: critical perspectives - Reviews - Book Review

Radical Teacher, Winter, 2002 by Robert J.S. Ross

Nicholas C. Burbules and Carlos Alberto Torres, eds. (Routledge, 2000)

Globalization and Education is "primarily a work of theory" (2) by a group composed primarily of Anglophone authors "critical" of globalized capital and what they repeatedly refer to as neoliberalism. Despite these oft-repeated value and political sentiments, the editors set the intellectual tone of the volume in their introduction, when they say that simple dichotomies, e.g., between the cultural and economics components of globalization, must give way to ambiguities and complexities (13-14). Then ensues a list of the components of globalization--economic, political, cultural. Not for these writers and editors a theory of priority or causality; instead, they do analysis by list. In some circles, one may write a list, say things are related dialectically (yes the editors do that too: 14) and then mail in the essay.

Besides being a bit short on theoretical clarity, these theorists, as a group, use language in ways that have become characteristic among people who call themselves theorists in social science and literature for about 20 years--poorly, densely, and vaguely.

The chapters are essays. Only a few use empirical material in their theoretical reflections, and those merely refer to them: in this corner of the world, apparently, theory means quoting other peoples' ideas, rather than discerning empirical relationships and explaining them. The authors refer to Post-modernism often, while one essay goes so far as to identify' the idea of globalization with post-modernism (Luke and Luke--287, 288)--an operation about as imperialist as those so scorned by the students of "post-colonialism." This perspective (appropriating the global to the postmodern) leads to a repetitive insistence on the parity of the cultural with the political economic, and an approach to causes and effects that are not unlike laundry lists: culture, race, gender, political economy, politics, and from Aisle A, some fresh green peppers. Here is the first sentence of a paragraph from Allan and Carmen Luke's essay:

The most widely accepted definition of globalization is that it is a feature of late capitalism, or the condition of post-modernity. And, more important, that it is characterized by the emergence of a world system driven in large part by a global capitalist economy. (287)

Apart from the absurd joining of the political economy of global capitalism with the discourse of post-modernism, this is a sensible quick summary. Alas, this volume has not yet got the news that less is more. It continues:

This "capitalocentric" epistemology, this focus on the economic as the principal force driving cultural social, and educational change on a global scale, fails to recognize that "economic activity always takes place and is embedded in a culturally constructed context." Such economic determinism drags culture along as a causal outcome, not as a context or broader social field of cultural circuits of signification, identities, and power relations. (287)

The idea of an "embedded" economic order, put most forcefully and classically by Karl Polanyi (1944) is not a logical or theoretical alternative to understanding the process of globalization as one driven by capitalist expansion. It was and is a way of tacitly understanding the economic norms held in all societies, and thus the absurdity of claiming that markets do not embody values or that they can exist without some form of normative regulation.

In common with much post-modernist discourse, no concepts are "privileged" here--except one, which is negatively privileged, i.e., one that is excluded. This book of essays on globalization--surely the most dramatic process of capital expansion and class struggle in this era, contains no discussion of class relations and globalization. So, the politics of the essays are studiously and canonically Left, but not of a stunted Red type.

While there are some exceptions, and I will discuss them below, the main problem with this collection is not my or anyone else's preference for different brands of theory or writing. Rather, there is little to learn here. The references are lengthy and include material from a broad range of English language sources, including New Zealand, Australia, and Canada besides the US and UK. The footnotes are a valuable resource for specialist researchers and graduate students. Otherwise, if a reader comes to this collection critical of globalization, he or she will not find many new insights about that. Whatever one's acquaintance with the literature on globalization, readers will find almost no empirical material on how globalization has effected education or educational policy. Instead, readers of this volume will learn something about some of the categories contemporary social science thinkers use when they begin to analyze globalization.

The impact of globalization on education appears here in broad generalizing sentences: a trend to market solutions is the common theme describing the high-income countries. The ways this is actually accomplished finds no detailed specification. There is a chapter on "managerialism" that seems to mean running a school like a business enterprise, but don't look here for that potentially interesting international comparison of vouchers, school-building level incentive systems, etc. In these writers' milieu the logical set comprised of "theory" apparently excludes any set that includes numbers. The editors note that with neoliberal policies the state withdraws "from its responsibility to administer public resources to promote social justice" (8). The book contains no quantitative measurement of support for public education. There is some ambiguity among the authors about quantity and quality in state support for education. The editors write as quoted above, while other authors note reliance on the market rather than specific claims about resource withdrawal. Is the withdrawal proposition true?