The Impact of Globalization on Urban Education - Essay Example

Download file to see previous pages  Globalization is an old occurrence, basically speaking, yet the rapidity and scale to which global interactions and exchanges are occurring make this period different from previous types of globalization. So how do changes brought about by globalization influence urban schools? Such changes affect urban schools in a number of ways that teachers and students immediately and strongly experience. This essay discusses the effects of globalization on urban education.

One of these effects is generated by the speed and convenience of Internet-driven interactions, which facilitate connections that were unknown in earlier times. Another effect is through the accessibility of scientific and technological data and knowledge that does not need actual, physical libraries. Students with access to the Internet can look for and unearth knowledge or information that was not accessible before students of the lower class (Lipman, 2004). Yet, counteracting these benefits are the disadvantages: globalization, including continuous economic problem and the outsourcing of communications and manufacturing jobs, has negatively affected the income base of numerous urban areas. Globalization has an effect on culture (Baronov, 2006). Some argue that globalization and the risk of homogenization or standardization are forcing local populations to oppose and thus reinforcing their local sentiments and identities, whether religious, cultural, or other forms of identity. Many are also anxious that the whole world population is taking on American-type consumerism and advancing to full homogenization (Baronov, 2006).

A middle standpoint, at times called ‘glocalization’, indicates that there is a cultural conflict, a push and pull, between cultural diversity and cultural homogenization. This conflict is repeated on a smaller extent in schools every time conflicts and rifts are seen over whose ethnic or cultural group asserts to be the superior one (Rizvi, 2007). Several schools follow the path of a more universal, common culture, and some endorse diverse cultures or cultural differences, but only a handful of schools, in fact, try to facilitate a balance that considers both faces of the issue (Lipman, 2004).  ...Download file to see next pagesRead More