GLOBALIZATION AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR LIFELONG LEARNING
Kenneth E. Paprock
TexasA&MUniversity
Abstract
Trying to design and implement a global strategy is no longer appropriate. Instead a triad strategy is required. This article examines globalization and how it may have implications for lifelong learning. Information increases along with technological changes have created a knowledge-based society along with an anomalous situation for many people. Learning approaches for assimilation and accommodation are discussed and strategies for helping adults learn are presented. Possible projections influencing human resource development and lifelong education are presented, along with critical issues confronting practitioners.
Keywords: Globalization, lifelong learning, knowledge-based society, and learning approaches
Introduction
Barber (1996) exemplifies global culture with three Ms: “MTV, Macintosh, and
McDonalds” (p.4). Other sites include theme parks, the Internet, television, tourist’s sites, shopping malls, and a plethora of consumer goods. As part of a worldwide consumer culture, each is driven by the now triumphant and relentless logic of the marketplace. Increasing numbers of people all over the world now experience the same complex repertoires of print, celluloid, electronic screens, and bill boards. For educators concerned with culture (e.g., Barnard, 1998; Duncum & Bracey, 2001), this wide range of imagery is grist to the mill because, as Debord (1967) was able to write a full generation ago, “All life presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles”. He argued that, whereas an earlier phase of capitalism there was a slide from being into having, there is now, with what he called the ‘society of the spectacle’, a slide from having into appearing (p.5).
Read 10 newspaper articles about globalization, and you will read ten – and perhaps more - different definitions of globalization. Globalization, I believe, reflects a process in which social relations are not only linked at the economic level but also permeate the political, social, cultural and environmental spheres, to impact on everyday life. Since the end of the Cold War, we have seen three forces that have created a more linked, and integrated world:
- The spread of free market forces;
- The impact of new communications and information technology;
- The rise of emerging markets;
One thing to note here is that linking potentially allows for choices, but how we link depends also on with what we choose to link. Contrary to popular beliefs, information does not necessarily lead to knowledge (Davis & Botkin, 1994). Rather, information leads to awareness, which in turn, leads to choice. The choices are what can lead to learning and change.
The terms “global” and “international,” and even “intercultural, cross cultural and multicultural” in relationship to education are often used without discretion, while some other authors are very eager to establish and clarify differences. The ERIC Clearing House on Higher Education explains the differences of these terms, in a critical issue bibliography sheet on internationalization of Post-Secondary Education, “each has a distinct meaning, but all emphasize the importance of the diverse cultures of the world as critical to education” (ERIC, 2002, p.1).
For some, the difference between terms is on the breath, depth, quantity and quality attained in the process of change. These difference start with efforts focused in reaching an intercultural, cross-cultural and multicultural education, reaching later an international education, and then, finally reaching a global education, meaning that the process of transformational change is complete, although not final.
For others the terms do not belong to the same process of transformation, and each of them has its own boundaries: multicultural deals with cultures within a country, international deals with a set of different separate countries, and, in occasions, with the interactions between these countries, but maintaining them apart and separate, and global deals with just one, independent world with no boundaries.
However defined, globalization is the process that is shrinking and transforming our world – speeding up the flow of information and resources, and bringing people and organizations and countries closer together, whether they like it or not. Globalization is a real and unavoidable process, with very real challenges, opportunities and – yes – threats.
What are the costs that globalization imposes? New ideas, fast moving change, unfamiliar concepts, an economy driven by the private sector rather than one planned by the government. There are economic disruptions and social changes as an economy and societies adjust to become more competitive in the global market. These are issues all nations face in the era of globalization.
Education and Approaches to Lifelong Learning
Education for development gained prominence as an issue within international debates from the sixties and seventies. All this history included a range of views and experiences from different perspectives and approaches to development. So far these differences in perspective have been in terms of two ends of a spectrum. At one end, there were approaches based on a view of development that started from the economic and political agendas. And conversely, at the other end of the spectrum, there were alternative approaches, for national liberation and social change.
But another dimension to these differences of approach is also relevant when attempting to make comparisons and contrasts between approaches in the First and Third Worlds. These differences are characterized in terms of the emphasis on adult education for individual development and self-fulfilment in the North, in contrasts to the more collective development focus in the South.
At this point it might be useful to identify four different tendencies for education, training, and development, rather than simply two tendencies mentioned above. This four-tendency model draws upon the approach which has been developed by Shanahan, in characterizing different contemporary approaches to adult education in various contexts (as cited in Mayo, 1997, p.58-59).
Tendency 1:Academic in the sense of non-technical/vocational adult education, for individuals, within the current socio-economic and political context.
Modifies version of Tendency 1: A market-led approach, individualistic emphasizing
individual choices, through market-mechanisms.
Tendency 2:Training geared to fitting the individual adult learner into the requirements of the current socio-economic and political context.
Modified version for Tendency 2:Collective, market-led approaches to training
emphasizing the overall importance of market-led approaches to development and renewal,
but recognizing the relevance of collective and community-based approaches to reach
these ends.
Tendency 3:Professional education/training to train professionals to act as change agents, acting on other people’s environments, accepting the need for change, but for change as defined by experts rather than those directly affected.
Modified version of Tendency 3: Individualistic approaches to education for
transformation. Academic, “armchair” approaches to political education, and education for
transformation, would fit here, along with approaches which emphasized the role of the
leader, as change agent, to such an extent as to devalue the role of the people directly
affected.
Tendency 4:Adult education and training for groups and communities, geared towards empowerment and transformation.
Modified version of Tendency 4:Collective alternative approaches emphasizing the value
of collective, workplace and community-based lifelong education.
In reality, there have been considerable differences in theoretical orientations within alternative approaches to training. Without minimizing the significance of these differences, it is also important to recognize that, in the present context at least, they share a common ground in developing alternatives to the market-led approach which is so prominent on a global scale.
Market-led approaches focus on increased consumption patterns and material luxury. However, life ways and consumption patterns of the rich, as indicated by many statistics, are stressful and unhealthy and can lead to hypertension, stroke, heart disease and cancer. The very ideal of material luxury is flawed. Clearly, there are more satisfying ways to live the good life. When all is said and done, the critical factor in choosing our future is the choice we ourselves make about the way we consume, the way we work, the way we live.
The common adaptive response to uncertainty and complexity is to try to repeat with greater effort what has been tried. Historically, this is referred to as “maintenance learning”. Societies have in the past adopted maintenance learning interrupted by short periods of innovation stimulated by the shock of external events. This learning is the acquisition of fixed outlooks, methods and rules for dealing with known and recurring situations. It is this type of learning, built on experience, which is designed to maintain an existing system or an established way of life. Maintenance learning through experience is, to a great extent, indispensable to the functioning and stability of every society.
The negative side to this is when we are exposed to the same experience over and over, we gradually pay less and less attention. This process is called habituation. It is learning not to pay attention. Habituation is vital in early childhood because it allows us to ignore most environmental stimuli and to concentrate our attention, and thus is an important prerequisite for learning. To the extent that people live in familiar environments and experience only very gradual changes in themselves, habituation may cause them to perceive very little need to adapt.
Implied in this discussion is the concept of anticipation. Anticipation is the capacity to face new, possibly unprecedented situations; it is the acid test for innovative learning processes. Anticipation is the ability to deal with the future, to foresee coming events as well as evaluate the medium-term and long-term consequences of current decisions and actions. It requires not only learning from experience but also “experiencing” vicarious or envisioned situations. Anticipation can reveal, through simulation and scenarios, a wide class of possibilities, and these possibilities may be future events which can and do influence not only changes in behavior, but also changes in preparation and purpose.
Within the general process of adaptation, Piaget (1968) identified the two processes of assimilation and accommodation. Actions that change the environment to better “fit” with the self represent assimilation. Actions that change the self to better adjust to the environment are called accommodation. These, simply, are the two ends of the continuum of learning. Assimilation being information and skills added to that which the individual already possesses. The transformative end of the continuum referring to changes in the individual’s perceptions and actions.
Information, Knowledge, and Choice Considerations
The basic concept that a given situation has more than one possible outcome and that one’s own choice can determine which of these is actualized is especially useful. In applying these ideas one needs to analyze one’s situation, searching actively for alternative interpretations of it, and alternative responses to it. This involves identifying preconceptions that can blind one to some of the alternatives.
How do we arrive at our choices? The key is information in the broadest sense. However, Keith Devlin (1999) says that information is only information, and it is not as some believe, knowledge. Information can lead to awareness. This awareness then can lead to choice. To learn or acquire knowledge, this choice must lead to change. One of the simplest definitions of learning is that it is a process that results in a change of knowledge, attitude and skills. Knowledge, it has been said, is the application and use of information with the learner giving information meaning or relevance.
The popular perception of learning is that based upon the transfer of information, i.e., the learning of new facts within an educational setting. The assumption is made that we know something when we acquire a fact or piece of information that we then have all that is required to put that something into action. In an organizational setting, the parallel assumption is that when a person in an organization is informed of a strategy or plan, that they will then be able to execute the plan. In an organization what is essential, is the ability to act, not simply to acquire information, and act in accordance with the goals and requirements of the enterprise. In their analysis of the causes of military failure, The Anatomy of Military Misfortunes, Cohen and Gooch (1990) provide a framework for understanding the learning requirements, which are useful for organizations beyond the military. The framework has been modified here to describe three kinds of learning:
Learning from Experience is the discipline and patterning required to draw meaning and lessons from the past as a basis for modifying future performance and evaluating potential directions. It is used to retain what is useful; to reject what is not, and to change where necessary. The timeframe is the past.
Learning to Adaptis the development of practices and skills to learn-in-the-midst-of-action, and involves a very short cycle time for reflection to action. People’s judgement, sensing and intuitive capabilities are involved in making meaning of rapidly unfolding situations and acting. The timeframe is the present.
Learning to Anticipateis the art of being receptive to signals about performance, goals and consequences of action from the environment, especially weak signals, which later may gain critical importance. Learning to anticipate involves the ability to understand, identify and take action on the gap between current capabilities and future challenges. It entails learning how to create effective developmental initiatives to improve performance for as yet unmet circumstances. The timeframe is the future.
These three kinds of learning are closely interrelated and strength in one can assist another. The view of learning which emerges from learning from experience, learning to adapt and learning to anticipate is one that is much more complex and holistic than simply the learning of new information. In order to strengthen an ability to learn in these three areas and at all levels, it must make its embedded learning processes increasingly explicit and available to reflection, review and improvement.
Education usually perceived and defined as a deliberate, systematic presentation of information. It is frequently a mostly formalized process that gives direction to learning. What is also the case in education is that educational programs attempt to provide a ready-made model for organizing and formatting information. The educational programs are presented as universal and able to fit any context, these models lend themselves to unsophisticated application and ignore the complexities of different environments. The issue is not with the use of these models as educational tools, but with the uncritical way in which they are presented.
Foundations for a global learning can be more appropriately erected on poststructural theories of reading reception and on theories of indigenization and cultural translation. Each of these theories stress heterogeneity and human agency rather than homogeneity and passivity. They stress the diversity, variety and richness of popular and local cultural practices, which resist and play with the cultural goods of global capital. In Reading Reception Theory Doheny-Farina (1996) makes the point that meaning is a collaborative process of negotiation in which participants interpret and construct the meanings of information in myriad ways. “Information is a verb, not a noun” he says (p. 24). Poststructuralist reading reception theory has taught us that a text, any text, is not a single entity with a fixed meaning, but is comprised of many interpretations.
In everyday life we are constantly interpreting. However, different people live in different contexts. Concretely this means that we are geographically situated in different places. It also means that we live in different social circumstances. Furthermore, we are placed in different cultures and in a specific historical situation. This is fundamental for the kinds of interpretations we make. These circumstances are also fundamental in terms of learning, in terms of the challenges that will provoke a change in interpretation of something. Two aspects of everyday life are prominent because they occupy a large proportion of the time that forms our lives, namely, working life and the use of mass media.
Titanic changes in the world economy, the rush of new technologies, the acceleration of communications and information ultimately lead to issues affecting our core notions of identity, morals, and values. Globalization is not just an economic force. It is not a process confined to bank accounts, stock markets and multinational corporations. One of the “globalisms” created is global learning and education, in which distance learning and sharing of information, enable students and teachers to have access to almost infinite sources of research and learning.
Knowledge Workers
The newly emerging dominant group in societies is “knowledge workers”. The very term was unknown forty some years ago. Peter Druckers coined it in his 1959 book, Landmarks ofTomorrow. A great majority of jobs now require qualifications the industrial worker does not have and is poorly equipped to acquire. These jobs require a good deal of formal education and the ability to apply theoretical and analytical knowledge. They require a different approach to work and a different mindset. Above all they require a habit of continuous learning.
Knowledge workers may not be the majority in the information society, but in many if not most developed societies they will be the largest single population and work-force group. And even where outnumbered by other groups, knowledge workers will give the emerging society its character, its leadership, its social profile.
Knowledge workers, it is true, generally gain access to jobs and social position through formal education. Education will become the center of the knowledge society, and the school its key institution. What knowledge must everyone have? What is “quality” in learning? These will be the central concerns of the knowledge society. I think that I can predict with confidence that we will redefine what it means to be an educated person. Traditionally, and especially during the past 300 years, an educated person was somebody who had a prescribed stock of formal knowledge. Increasingly, an educated person will be somebody who has learned how to learn, and who continues learning, increasingly by formal education, throughout his or her lifetime.