Globalisation and Education

Question 1

What is globalisation?

Answer 1

The world is becoming a smaller space and interconnected in time and travel. This means that we are now being influenced and affected by other cultures

Question 2

How has globalisation led to increased competition between countries?

AO1/2

Answer 2

Alexander: creates a moral ‘PISA panic’ over the state of British education and need for policies to ‘cure’ the system.
- Slimming down of national curriculum to ‘essential knowledge that other nations pass on to their pupils’ (Gove) this led to EBACC
- Raised academic entry requirements for trainee teachers in 2012 - derived from Finland (world leader in international assessments)
- National Literacy and Numeracy Challenges: primary schools required to teach 2hrs a day of each to students so british children would be able to compete

Question 3

How can we evaluate globalisation leading to increased competition?

AO3

Answer 3

• Kelly: makes education focused soley on preparing students for work - ignores wellbeing
• Alexander: comparing UK to countries like Hong Kong and Singapore makes no sense as they are culturally different and diferent in scale - England has 23,000 schools whereas Singapore has 350

Question 4

How does Kelly say globalisation has led to policies promoting skills to meet the needs of the global economy?

AO1

Answer 4

Kelly:
1. British gov feels need to ensure schools cater for the global economy by having skills that will be valuable in global market e.g. new specifications
2. There is more importance placed on social factors in education policies e.g. equal opportunity, celebrating different cultures
3. There’s a chance that all gov policies around the world will become similar as they all have the same goals. Thus there will be a trend towards privatisation with private schools recruting international fee-paying schools
4. Professionalism of teachers is undermined as managers and consultants are seen as experts in programmes e.g. some head teachers don’t have teaching qualifications but management degrees. LEAs lose importance as global competition trumps local needs
5. Large multinational corporation diven schools - city academies

Question 5

What policies reflect globalisation?

AO2

Answer 5

• T Levels which focus on vocational education
• Emphasis on life-long learning e.g. 2021 Levelling Up Policy which added £3.8b into funding for adult learning
• Greater Individualism is reflected as students are encouraged to consider their own learning styles and choose qualifications that suit them

Question 6

How do Usher and Thompson analyse education meeting the global economy?

AO3

Answer 6

Globalised postmodern world need education to produce flexible workforce of lifelong learners to meet the needs of post-fordist society

Question 7

How has globalisation led to diversity in education?

AO1/2

Answer 7

Globalisation creates diversity in types of schools and contributes to marketisation:
- Free Schools were influenced by Scandanavia
- Academies were inspired by US Charter Schools
- 2013 MCE: aimed to assist teachers with changing demographics of students - taught students about diverse histories and cultures

Question 8

How can we evaluate MCE?

AO3

Answer 8

MCE is tokenism of diversity - Stone and Mirza - is still ethnocentric and ignores institutional racism

Question 9

What are the 2 types of privatisation according to Ball and Youdell?

AO1

Answer 9

1. Endogenous privatisation: schools begin to operate more like private businesses as private sector values are brought into day to day running of schools:
   - Competition e.g. league tables
   - Formula funding
   - Academies and Free schools
2. Exogenous Privatisation: privatisation from outside the school system - opening up state education to private profit making businesses:
   - running of examination system - Pearson, Edexcel is run by a TNC and provides qualifications and resources in over 70 countries
   - management of schools - private academy chains e.g. Academies Enterprise Trust
   - schools services e.g. agency workers, transport

Question 10

What do other sociologists say about the privatisation of schools?

AO1

Answer 10

• Ball: this is the cola-isation of schools
• Molnar: schools are targeted by private companies to advertise as they can use them for product endorsement

Question 11

Does privatisation benefit students?

AO3

Answer 11

• Benefits are very limited e.g. Ball found Cadbury’s sports equipment was scrapped after it was revealed that students would have to eat 5,440 chocolates just to qulify for a set of volleyball posts
• Businesses cherry pick which schools to invest in - typically the already successful ones