Globalized curriculum or global approach to curriculum reform in mathematics education

The mathematics education community has shown considerable awareness of the international status of their discipline. While internationalization of the discipline is not a new phenomenon, globalization is a relatively recent term in educational discourse. This paper presents a theoretical model towards the study of globalization and internationalization in mathematics education based on previous publication by the authors. Secondly, it identifies some key issues that have been discussed in the literature and that may require further discussion and research in the field. In particular it discusses the issue of similarity of mathematics education curricula around the world. The concept of a global curriculum is rejected in favor for more internationalized approach to curriculum reform based on collaboration between mathematics educators.     

Globalization,values education,and school music education in China

This paper examines music education’s legitimation of values as a means of preparing students for entry into the new ‘knowledge society’ of the People’s Republic of China in a global age. It explores the ways in which values education relates to the teaching of both musical and non‐musical meanings in the dual context of nationalism and globalization, and discusses some problems that values education faces in school music classrooms. It examines the ways in which globalization has pressured values education into resolving the apparent contradiction between national identity and national unity in the ever‐changing play of Chinese history and politics. It concludes with a discussion of how music education might juggle three pairs of apparently contradictory relationships in the curriculum: between contemporary cultural and social values on the one hand, and traditional Chinese and Communist ideologies on the other; between collectivism and individualism; and between national and global cultures.     

Preparing early childhood educators for global education: the implications of prior learning

This paper outlines the increasing cultural diversity of Australia’s education settings and explicates the global education movement and the new Australian Early Years Learning Framework. It discusses the implication of these factors for early childhood education practice and early childhood teacher education. The key research question considered in this paper is what prior learnings do early childhood educators utilise to consider global education? Data are presented on a research project that explores the prior learning of pre‐service early childhood educators at a major Australian university. The paper shows that, unlike primary and secondary pre‐service teachers, most early childhood education pre‐service teachers have significant professional experiences in educational settings. These prior experiences have a significant impact on pre‐service early childhood educators’ knowledge, beliefs and attitudes in the area of global education and align strongly with the global education curriculum movement and new national curriculum.     

Teacher education in post-apartheid South Africa: Navigating a way through competing state and global imperatives for change

This article focuses on teacher education in post-apartheid South Africa. It argues that the restructuring and reorganization of teacher education is at the nexus of the axes of tension created by national and global imperatives for change. Along with the dismantling of apartheid and the transition to a free and democratic state in 1994 came the urgent need for social reconstruction, democratization, redress, social justice, and equity. At the same time, and as part of a global context, the country needed global competitiveness, human capital development, global skills, international standards, and accountability. These competing modernist discourses have informed the design and orientation of the National Qualifications Framework and national curriculum that took place in parallel with, and simultaneous to, the restructuring and reform of teacher education. This article reviews literature pertinent to understanding the post-apartheid transformation in South African education in general and teacher education in particular. It concludes that policy makers have managed to navigate a way through the axis of tension created by opposed orientations to transformation. A more equitable and improved system of teacher education has been achieved but critical issues of teacher quality and quantity have emerged which urgently need resolution.     

School mathematics in the era of globalization

This essay reviews the principles motivating contemporarycritical mathematics discourses. Drawing from varied critical discourses including ethno-mathematics, critical theory, post-structural theory, and situated and ecological cognition, the essay examines the pragmatics of critiques to the privileged role of school mathematics in the era of globalization. Critiques of modern school curricula argue that globalization practices linking education to technological and economic development are increasing, and the curriculum is being re-defined through discourses of privatization, national standards, and global competitiveness. Globalization has reinforced the utilitarian approach to school mathematics and the Western bias in the prevailing mathematics curricula, as well as helped to globalize pervasive mathematical ideologies. In most instances, a newfound status that mathematics is enjoying in this era of globalization is not well deserved, as school mathematics can no longer be considered culturally, socially, politically, nor economically neutral. In particular, school mathematics is increasingly critiqued as a cultural homogenizing force, a critical filter for status, a perpetuator of mistaken illusions of certainty, and an instrument of power. With such concerns it is becoming more evident that mathematics learning and education have implications for building just and democratic societies. As an African female scholar who is now living in Canada, I reflect on what the critical stance might mean for contexts with which I am familiar. I discuss the challenges of school mathematics with a view to improving curriculum and pedagogy so as to raise the awareness of teachers and learners to the questionable assumptions from which mathematics derives its prestige. The mathematics curriculum is central to cultivating values as well as fostering the conscientization of learners.     

韩国新修订的国家课程及其启示

在教育国际化和信息化的背景下,韩国在2009年对其国家课程进行了修订。这次修订渗透了全球化思想,体现以学生为本,关注校本课程。本文在梳理韩国小学、初中和高中的课程设置的内容和特点后,指出其存在的问题,并提出了对中国课程改革的几点启示。     

全球化对台湾高教政策的影响以及因应策略

全球化经济体系带来巨额经济利益,但获取此种利益的前提是国际竞争力,致使许多国家必须藉由高等教育以提升人力资本的水平,进而强化自身的国际竞争力。此种关连性显示,高等教育扩张往往受到上述全球化价值观的影响,由于全球化体系着重于新自由主义的思维,其核心价值是私人企业的竞争与效能,因此正当化资本介入高等教育的行为,所以将产生高等教育私有化的现象。尽管全球化带来可观的经济利益,但是强势文化亦能伴随此一体系入侵输入国家,此种入侵将贬抑输入国家的母文化之地位,进而危及其国民的国家认同,此种现象促使这类国家采取在地化的手段,以保存与发展自身文化的方式,来化解上述政治危机。基于上述关连性,本研究将探讨全球化对台湾高等教育发展的影响。     

Local,national and global citizenship

This paper puts local, national and global citizenship into context post 11.9.01 and pre Johannesburg Earth Summit 2002. It contextualises the strands of the Crick report (1998) and how these integrate with the national curriculum. It argues for a school ethos of citizenship which permeates the whole curriculum rather than a taught citizenship curriculum. The whole notion of citizenship is related to Agenda 21 and Local Agenda 21 and strong bonds are made with Education for Sustainability and Environmental Education.     

McSchools for McWorld? Mediating global pressures with a McDonaldizing education policy response

This paper argues that key education policy initiatives since the introduction of the National Curriculum in the UK are Government‐mediated responses to pressures in the global knowledge economy. Successful implementation of these policies has required a change in the way in which education institutions and professionals are controlled and managed. George Ritzer's ‘McDonaldization’ thesis, a conceptualization of a dominant form of economic and cultural globalization, is outlined and it is then argued that national education policy has led to the ‘McDonaldization’ of the state school education system in England. Benjamin Barber's concept of ‘McWorld’ is used to represent the consumerist world which a narrowed educational vision seeks to serve.     

Citizenship,citizenship education,and the state in China in a global age

Citizenship and citizenship education change during periods of social transition, such as globalization. As globalists have argued, while globalization undermines the state, local institutions, values, cultures, and identities, it also facilitates liberal democracy and a common consumer culture. Citizenship education is urged to respond to globalization and its impact on both global and local communities. In reality, virtually no nation state adopts merely global citizenship; rather, they adopt frameworks of multileveled/multidimensional citizenship. With particular reference to citizenship education in the People's Republic of China (PRC), this paper challenges globalists' views for over‐exaggerating the domination of global forces over domestic ones. In particular, the paper examines the complicated struggles associated with the reconfiguration of the PRC's socialist citizenship and citizenship education that have occurred in response to social changes, including globalization. The paper explains the role of the PRC's state in such reconfiguration and offers a new framework that regards citizenship education as being based on different players' sociopolitical selections from a multileveled polity.     

Locating curriculum studies in the global village

This paper examines the prospect of 'internationalizing' curricula and curriculum studies in the context of increasingly complex patterns of global interconnectedness in social production and organization. I explore some ways in which diverse knowledge traditions can be sustained locally, and amplified transnationally, without being absorbed into an imperialist archive. The homogenizing effects of economic and cultural globalization and internationalization can be resisted by emphasizing the performative rather than the representational aspects of curriculum work. The internationalization of curriculum studies can then be understood as creating transnational 'spaces' in which local knowledge traditions in curriculum inquiry can be performed together, not as local representations of curriculum translated into a universal discourse.     

How Do National Economic Competitiveness Indices View Human Capital?

Economic competitiveness is at the top of national, regional and global political and economic agendas. Several countries in all regions of the world have established policies and institutions devoted to economic competitiveness, including in developing and transition countries. This leads to the question of how to define national economic competitiveness and, as a logical consequence, how to measure it. This article provides a critical analysis of two major global indices measuring national economic competitiveness, the World Economic Forum (WEF) and the International Institute for Management Development (IMD), with a special focus on the index published by the WEF due to its broader global coverage. The article shows that human capital has been given relatively little explicit recognition, despite the large weight of human capital in the WEF index. This article asserts through simulations based on WEF data that countries performing poorly in national economic competitiveness rankings can improve their standings significantly by focusing reform efforts on raising quality of education and on expanding access to education and training. The simulations also show that the potential improvements in national economic competitiveness are unequally distributed across the globe, and that in terms of national economic competitiveness, developing and transition countries stand to gain relatively most from improving their education and training systems compared to developed nations. Suggestions for improving measurements of education and training in the WEF index conclude the article and it is shown that educationalists can help refocus policy discussions on how to improve education and training systems through discussions on substance.     

Global discourses and national reconstruction: the impact of globalization on curriculum policy

Globalization has been widely discussed and much contested. It has been claimed that the process of globalization has impacted greatly on the capacity of the nation-state to formulate policy (e.g. Reich, 1992). Moreover, globalization has been accompanied by, or at least runs parallel to, a seemingly endless process of change within education. This process has assumed a worldwide character,as policies have migrated around the world; thus there have existed many similarities in terms of, for instance, curriculum provision, or school governance, between New Zealand, Australia, the United Kingdom and the USA. This article examines the nature and extent of education change in general terms, and the concept of globalization, before analysing the links between globalization and the process of change in one area of education, that is, the development of national frameworks for curriculum and assessment within anglophone nations.     

Beyond the global city: a comparative analysis of cosmopolitanism in middle-class educational strategies in Australia and Brazil

ABSTRACT

The global middle class (GMC) is a theoretical construct that seeks to globalise a set of attributes identified in studies of school choice in the global north, and to a lesser extent in developing nations in Asia. As theorised by Ball a mobile middle class with cosmopolitan sensibilities drives international education options in global cities. This proposition is challenged through analysis of the histories of curriculum and class relations in two national settings (Australia and Brazil) and examination of contemporary class profiles (i.e. economic and cultural properties) in expanding forms of international education in these countries. The paper argues that the forms of cosmopolitanism associated with the educational practices of the GMC must be examined within broader historical relationships of cultural domination. We conclude by arguing that broadening the historical horizon is an important exercise to challenge the claim of the GMC to be a novel category involving exceptional forms of cultural contact generated by the dynamics of the ‘global city’.     

国内外中小学生学业成就调查与测评研究进展及启示

随着义务教育的普及和国际竞争的日趋激烈,世界各国普遍重视教育质量的提升,教育质量监控、学生学业成就调查与测评成为倍受关注的研究领域.对国内外中小学生学业成就调查与测评研究成果与实践经验的系统梳理,启示我们要尽快建立义务教育质量国家监测制度,定期开展学生在核心课程领域的学业发展水平测试,以为国家相关教育决策、基础教育课程改革推进、教育质量提升提供依据.     

Education in Thailand after the crisis: a balancing act between globalization and national self-contemplation

Preparing a country for economic competitiveness and contributing to the preservation of the national cultural heritage are two demands that fall on education systems across the globe today. This paper relates the recent academic debate on the effects of globalization on education systems to current developments in Thailand, as reflected in recent Thai education policy documents. The 1997 financial and economic crisis has intensified thinking among Thai policy makers about a new balance of autonomy and dependency, of inward and outward orientation, of economic competitiveness and cultural self-reliance. Among others, life-long learning and educational decentralization are considered as instruments to balance the conflicting demands on the education system.     

INTERNATIONAL CO‐OPERATION IN HIGHER EDUCATION: THE GLOBALIZATION OF UNIVERSITIES

This article begins by posing some fundamental questions about global co‐operation and why co‐operation among nations is necessary. Co‐operation in higher education can foster global understanding and bridge cultural gaps. What is therefore called for is the globalization of universities. For positive international co‐operation in education to occur, the following initiatives are required: global perspectives in the curriculum, foreign students as learning resources, the globalization of universities and colleges, and the disengagement of educational policy from foreign policy.     

Treaty 2Us: the cultural turn in New Zealand education reform and the commerce of curriculum

How do Asia Pacific educators make sense of culture in the curriculum in terms appropriate to the twenty-first century? With the advance of globalization, is the idea of a culture (whether national, ethnic, or indigenous) as a way of life sustainable? In such a paradoxical setting where global forces appear to both affirm and undercut local cultures, how can educators navigate and negotiate the global cultural interactions required to make the curriculum an acceptable path for cultural formation? This essay uses a cross-disciplinary form of historical analysis to focus on recent national curriculum reforms in New Zealand in order to explore the present contexts and concepts of culture.     

全球化、国际化与高等教育交流:香港的经验

为了应对日益激烈的全球市场竞争,许多新兴国家和地区的政府近年来都纷纷起草教育改革蓝图,并出台一系列针对教育体制改革的措施。香港特别行政区也把教育作为一项优先发展的公共政策,以增强本地公民的全球竞争力。在认识到人力资源是特别行政区拥有的唯一资源后,香港特区政府亦斥巨资投资教育。尽管特别行政区目前面临严重的预算赤字,但教育仍占到2004-2005年政府预算公共支出的最大份额22.5％。本文着重对在全球化的背景下,香港特别行政区采取怎样的措施来改善其高等教育体制,以及香港的大学如何与海外大学加强学术交流,以增强本港大学的国际竞争力进行论述。     

Globalization and the Development of Multinational Curriculum

The process of globalization has posed great challenges to the twenty-first century education in every single nation.In response to these challenges,scholars and curriculum theorists have advocated to develop transnational and multinational curriculum to meet the requirements of global citizens.To be specific,26 experts from nine nations worked on a multinational curriculum project for four years.The final product is a set of curriculum recommendations on education for global citizenship.Despite the success of this project,various challenges also exist for those who work on developing multinational curriculum.