Globalization and Intercultural Education

The International Context: Globalization, Diversity, and Uniformity

The uprisings that began in the winter of 2011 in a number of countries in North Africa and the Middle East have demonstrated the global connectivity and the emerging democratic and political imagination of citizens in many of these countries both in territorial and extraterritorial terms. These horizontal revolts have deep causes but as social networks were facilitated by Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter.

These acts of connectivity were not nurtured by the national education or school systems. During the period of the authoritarian Egyptian government, intercultural relations between Shias and Sunnis and Copts and Muslims were antagonistic, but they improved after the fall of the government in Egypt. Although education may not be the primary cause of conflict, perceived injustices linked to identity, faith, and ethnicity can tip the balance in favor of peace or conflict. For instance, limited or poor quality provision that leads to unemployment and poverty during a period of “youth bulge” can act as a forceful recruiting agent for armed conflict; unequal access generates grievances and sense of injustice; school systems can be used to reinforce prejudice and intolerance and used to reinforce political domination. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Education for All (EFA) Monitoring Report states, “The use of education systems to foster hatred and bigotry has contributed to the underlying causes of violence from Rwanda to Sri Lanka” (UNESCO: GMR Paris: 2011).

However, the causal underpinnings of these impulses for peaceful revolts in North Africa and the Middle East are not clear, nor is the role “informal” citizenship education has played in the development of this inter-cultural and collective political consciousness and civic action. These revolts at the regional and potentially global levels may represent a new dawn of citizens taking part in new political possibilities that challenge brutal authoritarian and corrupt regimes. The revolts represent the desire for justice, dignity, and self-respect after being subjected to decades of subordination of people's democratic aspirations by paternalistic regimes in diverse polities.

Other complex problems at the international levels create un-level playing fields between the “West and the rest,” and this Eurocentric perspective has a long pedigree, which is indicated by a recent publication by Niall Ferguson, Civilization: The West and the Rest. The West is perceived as being part of modernity and the “the rest” as being tradition bound. However, a longue durée perspective dating from ancient times is highlighted in Samir Amin's book, Global History: A View From the South. This book provides a powerful voice that counters the Eurocentrism of many scholars. In this Janus-faced context, the West projects itself as being in the forefront of globalization and as having universal values.

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