A New World View: Education in a Global Era

Abstract

Guest editors Stewart and Kagan reflect on what the articles in this special section have taught us about the impact of globalization on education systems around the world. They conclude with recommendations for steps the U.S. can take to advance its own role in the ongoing development of international education. AFTER THE discovery of atomic fission, Albert Einstein said, Everything has changed except the way we think. While less cataclysmic, the quickening pace of globalization over the past 20 years--driven by the profound technological changes described by Thomas Friedman in The World Is Flat; by the economic resurgence of China, Russia, and India; and by the accelerating pace of scientific discovery--has produced a whole new world. The implications of these changes are not completely clear, but it is clear that the changes will be profound. Information, people, and ideas now traverse the globe with unprecedented speed and frequency. Perhaps even more important, such internationalization affects every field of endeavor. Yet somewhat ironically, our educational discourse is largely stuck in a time warp, framed by issues and standards set decades before the widespread use of the personal computer, the Internet, and free trade agreements. But we can no more afford to isolate ourselves educationally than we can economically or in terms of national security. At the same time, other countries such as China, Russia, India, South Africa, Chile, Jordan, and Brazil, to mention but a few, are reexamining their education systems and making fundamental reforms in response to changed political conditions and demographic shifts and in order to prepare their students to be successful in the knowledge-intensive, high-tech, and globalized economy. They and other nations around the world are eager to share their own experiences and effective practices and to learn from the educational choices made by other countries. COMMON CHALLENGES Clearly, because of widely differing historical, social, and economic contexts, the nations of the world are at very different stages of progress in education and child development services. But as economies in most of the world become more knowledge-intensive and as populations press for greater opportunities for their children, governments face many similar challenges as they seek to expand access to education and child development services; to increase the quality, effectiveness, and accountability of their investments in these areas; and to wrestle with new issues brought on by globalization itself. 1. Increasing access. Worldwide, access to education has improved greatly over the past 30 years. Enormous expansions of basic education in countries as different as South Africa and Turkey have helped to open up societies in ways unimaginable a generation ago. But much remains to be done--110 million children around the world, including over 60 million girls, do not go to school at all. The high returns on investments in basic education in terms of health and economic development suggest the urgency of creating effective national and international responses to the Millennium Development Goal of getting all children into basic education by 2015. Even where children are enrolled in school, the overwhelming challenge remains to narrow the achievement gaps between poor children and their more affluent peers and between children in cities and those in rural areas. The nature of a society's expenditures and policies can have a major impact on the size of these gaps and is an important area for cross-national discussion. (1) More recently, some societies have begun to invest in early childhood services on a large scale. These investments have been spurred by research on the early development of the brain; by longitudinal evaluations of early intervention programs that demonstrate the benefits of early childhood education for children's cognitive, social, and emotional development as well as their longer-term success in school and in the labor force; and by the significant cost savings that accrue to those societies that provide the benefit of high-quality early education. …