A Review of Multicultural Literature on Globalization

Every semester I assign students a 1999 essay by bioethicist and Princeton Professor Peter Singer that argues that there is a solution to world hunger.  Singer proposes that if each person making $30,000 annually for a family of four handed over the remaining earned monies to organizations that feed and care for the impoverished and destitute citizens of the world, global hunger issues would decrease.  My students are apoplectic, self-righteous and, in some cases, angry.

This essay works in an AP English Language class because of our focus on rhetoric and argument.  I was not aware that in introducing Singer’s logical and ethical argument —however implausible it might be in practice — I was challenging “the dominant narrative of interdependence, American superiority, and advancement (Sleeter, 2003 in Gibson, 2010, p. 134).  In Gibson’s conceptual review of scholarly journals within the field of Multicultural Education, she asks why teachers like me didn’t go further, providing all six of Sleeter’s (2003) commonly occurring metaphors for describing globalization and then problematizing them to inform and enact social justice.  I do not have an answer for this, but when I assign the text selection this year, perhaps I can do more than merely examine Singer’s argument.

Six Metaphors to Describe Globalization

• the “global village” metaphor, which speaks to the interconnectedness of cultures and the increase in
  international migrations;
• the “military competition” metaphor, which speaks to what are perceived as post-Cold War global struggles
  between good and evil and for global dominance;
• the “network of interdependence” metaphor, which speaks to the world becoming an interconnected market
  where nations specialize in a niche of production, market demand dictates the flow of capital, and free
  trade is equated with free choice;
• the “McWorld” metaphor, which speaks to the rise of rampant, “big box” consumerism as a global culture;
• the “spaceship earth” metaphor, which speaks to the interconnectedness of earth’s fragile eco-systems
  and the need for a systems approach to reducing the environmental impact of human actions; and
• the “neo-colonialism” metaphor, which speaks to the way that profit-driven market systems mimic the
  patterns of racism, domination, and exploitation of colonial relationships of years past.

Sleeter (2003) in Gibson, 2010

Pushing Back Against Dominant Global Narratives

I have always positioned myself as a teacher of Multicultural Education praxis citing Freire’s “read the world,” Noddings nod to care theory, and Ladson-Billings’s attention to the diverse students and their distinct ways of knowing.  I promote pluralism as I expose my students to different viewpoints through the literature I choose, the media clips I select, and the art and student work posted on my classroom walls.  Perhaps in my zeal to be celebratory and inclusive, I have left out opportunities to push back against the dominant global narratives.

The Market is Everything?

Gibson’s scary observation that a common assumption of globalization is “reframing social relations [and] all forms of knowledge and culture regarding the market” (p. 130) is chilling. She frames her argument with two competing tensions– globalization brings increasing and intensified inequality and racism; while at the same time, it brings an opportunity for emergent “thick” democracy, flat world economic equity (for more world inhabitants than before), and more cohesive, interdependent and global socio-cultural understandings due to technology, trade, and migration.  Gibson cites Sleeter’s (2003) comment that “increasingly, schools are losing a vision of education for public good and shifting towards education for private consumption and the needs of transnational corporations.”  Nowhere is that more evident in the insidious takeover of America’s schools by mega-testing corporations.  From age 4-22, students are tested, normed, judged, and remediated based on global companies like Pearson, McGraw Hill, and ETSs’ conceptualization of literacy and numeracy.

A Call to Action: Engagement

Gibson’s study appeared in 2010, and since it was published in a peer-reviewed journal, it probably took at least six months before it went to print.  She selected sources for her analysis that were released in the new millennium but her most recently cited source is 2008.  I wonder, in 2015, if scholars, teachers, and teacher education programs have taken up her call to action and educational research implications.

Much has happened since 2008, including a reinvigorated American and world economy; the election and re-election of President Obama; a drawdown of American troops in the Middle East with a commensurate rise in extremist elements to fill the vacuum; the fall of Syria, Ukraine, and Congo; and the dominance of China as an economic world power.  One of Gibson’s questions, “Are we engaging in global exchange and social protest?” can be answered by the Arab Spring in 2011 and its reliance on Twitter and other social networks to allow global citizens to “read” the situation and understand the truth.  Teachers and students all over the world, at least those with access to technology, followed this story as it transpired.

Gibson, M. L., (2010). Are we “reading the world”? A review of multicultural literature on globalization. Multicultural Perspectives, 12 (3), 129-137