Winter 2009

Asia literacy—our future

Fixing disadvantage in education

In this global village that we now all live in, we need to become good global citizens. Yong Zhao discusses how we can do this.

The Chinese often describe situations of mutual dependence with the saying 'we are two grasshoppers tied to the same string. I cannot escape, neither can you.' While it may not sound elegant, the saying tells a fundamental truth about living in the global village: the welfare of all human beings has become so interconnected and interdependent that no individual, organisation, or nation can continue to live in isolation. We need to become global citizens.

One of the elements of global citizenship is knowledge of the vast economic and social inequalities existing in today's world and how these inequalities may affect our lives. We need to help our children understand that globalisation may have generated more wealth around the world, but the distribution has been uneven. Not everyone has enjoyed the same level of economic growth. Some have even charged that globalisation has increased the misery of many people. Our children, who will live in this global village much longer than we will, need to understand that globalisation's negative outcomes—exploitation of poor countries, for example—can affect their own lives.

Our interdependence is economic, and it is also environmental. Global warming also causes extreme weather, affects agricultural yields and the extinction of species, and increases the spread of life-threatening diseases. These changes can threaten human lives and result in great economic costs.

These problems are global in nature. When China imports timber from Indonesia, it in essence exports deforestation. When India's middle class expands and an increasing number of people begin to drive, they contribute to the energy crisis and global warming. When Brazilians replace forests with coffee fields in the Amazon region, they too are affecting the global temperature. Similarly, when the USA sends its manufacturing industries overseas, it also sends pollution there.

Global problems can only be solved globally. One country can change its energy policy, impose greenhouse gas taxes, or promote conservation, but unless all countries adopt the same approach, unless everyone is aware of the problems and is willing to contribute to their solutions, it is impossible to address these problems. However, there lies a moral difficulty. Since everyone has the same right to pursue a better, modern life regardless of where they are, can we ask developing nations not to pursue economic development? But it is impossible to sustain the current Western lifestyle for everyone on Earth.

If we are to address global economic inequalities and environmental issues, we need to understand the nature of global problems, their causes, their potential effects, their complex moral, economic and political implications, and possible solutions. Hence, knowledge of global problems is an essential component of what makes a contributing citizen in the global village. We also need a mindset that helps transcend traditional racial, religious, political, and other boundaries that used to divide human beings into 'us' and 'them': a new mindset that considers all human beings as 'us'.

An effective way to develop a global mindset in which all people are viewed as 'us' is to understand others as human beings. To understand others requires us to interact with them directly. To interact with them requires us to have the ability to move across cultures comfortably and fluently. Such ability I refer to as cross-cultural competency. It includes both the ability to use the language and a deep understanding of the culture. Cross-cultural competency is also a necessary ability for all citizens in the global village in their professional life; they will need to work with individuals from different cultural backgrounds. In addition, to perform the basic functions of citizens, they will need to make decisions about and interact with people from other cultures, such as immigrants in their communities.

Cross-cultural competency first and foremost includes a deep understanding and appreciation of different cultures. There are many definitions of culture but the more generally accepted one is proposed by anthropologists Daniel Bates and Fred Plog in their book Cultural Anthropology: 'A culture is the system of shared beliefs, values, customs, behaviors, and artifacts that the members of society use to cope with their world and with one another, and that are transmitted from generation to generation through setting the scene learning' (Bates & Plog, 1990). This definition contains a number of very important points about culture. First, it is not only about factual knowledge, such as knowledge of a capital city, history, or political system. Culture includes beliefs, values, customs, and behaviours, things that cannot necessarily be explicitly described. Second, culture is learned, which means that it is not genetically transmitted and others can learn the system. Third, it is shared by the members of a society and transmitted from generation to generation so it is fairly stable and ubiquitous, which makes a large part of a cultural system unconscious. That is, members of a culture know the values, beliefs, and customs so well that they do not consciously think about them, making it difficult for them to explain them to others.

True understanding of other cultures requires one to 'penetrate below the surface' of other cultures (Dewey, 1983) rather than simple fact-telling international education classes, which are easily coloured by superficial emotion, ignorance, fear, and prejudice (Saito, 2003). The understanding needs to reach 'the inner spirit and real life of a people' (Dewey, 1983). Thus to develop real understanding of other cultures requires us to experience the culture in context, rather than simply memorising some facts or imitating stereotypes.

Cross-cultural competency also means the ability to live in different cultures and move across different cultures fluently. In the globalised world, one will not only be interacting with one or two cultures but it is impossible for anyone to be competent in all world cultures. Thus cross-cultural competency can be viewed as a general psychological ability that includes attitudes, perspectives, and approaches to new, different cultures. Again John Dewey suggests such competencies can be developed by confronting and surmounting difference in ways of thinking, value systems, and habits of mind in other countries. According to Dewey, education for global understanding must be supported by the notion of unity in diversity, a solidarity among human beings that is made possible only through interaction between different perspectives (Saito, 2003). Our schools have a critical role to play, therefore, in educating our students for global citizenship.

Proficiency in foreign languages is an essential component of cross-cultural competency. Today, many education systems teach foreign languages for economic reasons and thus focus on only communicative competency. While communicative competency is important, language also serves as an insightful window into the shared beliefs, values, customs, behaviours, and artefacts that characterise a society. Learning a second language can also help students to understand other cultures more broadly.

We now live in a 'flat' world or 'global village'. As residents of this global village, what do we need to do to make this a happy and prosperous place for all? The answer is simple: global citizenship. For the global village to become happy and prosperous for all its residents, everyone in this village must accept the fact that their wellbeing is intricately interconnected and dependent on others; they must understand and be willing to tackle common problems facing the village; they must treat each other as equals; and they must try to understand and appreciate each other's beliefs, values, behaviours, and customs. And finally, of course, they must be able to talk with each other, using a common language. The members of our global village are grasshoppers tied to the same string, and we must learn to live together with respect, responsibility and compassion.

Yong Zhao is professor at College of Education, Michigan State University.

The author owns the copyright in this article. For information related to the reuse of this work in any form please contact the publisher denise.quinn@curriculum.edu.au