By Tahari Jamal - Agadir
‘Global education’ is defined as an educational approach that aims at introducing global issues in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classrooms. It is one of the hotly debated issues among sociolinguists and applied linguists because of the divergent perspectives about introducing it in language teaching and the real target behind it. Sociolinguists claim that global education is a carrier of the social and cultural projects of the West. In other words, it reproduces power relationships and fosters dominance over the world through propagating the adoption of Western values at schools, particularly in EFL classrooms.
Linguists assume that global education is strongly bounded to the globalization process that the world is witnessing. They clarify that pedagogy is a very effective tool to spread and instill global values in students who need to identify themselves with the new world outside their own. The concept of ‘world citizenship’ is a manipulative way to homogenize nations and suppress differences. This leads to a strong dispute among applied linguists over the effectiveness of global education in promoting learning.
Some have seen that the application of global education can be of great importance in enhancing learning, since global issues are closely related to students’ daily life, whereas others have admitted that universal issues should be left to sociological studies rather than being introduced into language learning. Cultural theorists refute the benefits of global education and criticize its hidden agendas because it targets local and indigenous cultures. They emphasize that local cultures are endangered by the massive onslaught of globalization, which invites people from different nationalities, identities, and ethnicities to join the global citizenship and to embrace its philosophy.
Defenders of global education disclaim the culturalist assumptions and stress that global issues build social harmony and cooperation among people. That is, when teachers present global issues in their classrooms, they instill in students values of collaboration, problem-solving, active participation in society, tolerance. Whereas postcolonial critical theorists focus on the use of power to dominate the world of education and impose models of teaching on other nations. They base their assumption on the idea that educational thoughts and practices are imposed by the West on other countries. They state that the concept of global education is invented to legitimize Western dominance over other nations.
These theorists assume that global organizations that support the uniformity of education are interested in serving the wealthy countries by preparing students as labor force for the global economy. Cultural theorists propose that the borrowing and lending of educational ideas are critically recommended, but they insist on adapting those ideas to the local cultures. Culturalists reject the idea of global education uniformity in the sense that it aims at suppressing diversity and pluralism. They argue that people should recognize that there is no single superior model of education.
Critics proclaim that global issues are controversial because people have different interpretations of them depending on the culture of each country. Therefore, they call for a total exclusion of global issues from educational institutions. Furthermore, the critics base their assumption on the idea that global issues invite teachers’ partiality and lead to “preaching” rather than teaching. By ‘preaching,’ they imply that global education is an ideology rather than an approach to education in the sense that it aims to spread notions of democracy, human rights, and fighting terrorism from the Western point of view and not from the local angle. That is to say, that the West represents its democracy as a utopian model to be embraced and applied by the whole world.
Edited by Melissa Smyth
© Morocco World News. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, rewritten or redistributed