Educational Leadership in an

Age of Globalisation

David Williams

Turning the Tide

Riding the Waveor

Whether Globalisation is a

catch-phrase of politicians or a

driver for change within

educational establishments depends on

the degree to which it is seen as a

lever or a blunt instrument

“Globalisation is an

accelerated compression of the

contemporary world and the intensification of

consciousness of the world as a singular entity.

“Compression makes the world a single place by

virtue of the power of a set of globally diffused ideas that render the uniqueness of social and ethnic

identities and traditions irrelevant except within local

contexts and in scholarly discourse.”

- Ronald Robertson, ‘Globalisation Theory & Civilised Analysis’ (1987)

“Globalisation is a process in

which economies, cultures and

societies have combined through a global

network of trade and communication”

- Patrick Doherty, ‘Globalisation and Education’ (2010)

“Globalisation can be seen as multifaceted

consisting of six strands:

• Changing concepts of space and time (shrinking)

• Increasing the numbers of cultural interactions • Commonality of problems facing everyone

• Increasing inter-dependencies and connections• The development of trans-national actors and other

organisations

• The synchronisation of these elements concerning

globalisation”- Cohen and Kennedy, ‘Global Society’ (2000)

“Trans-national corporations, multi-national corporations, governmental and non-governmental organisations are playing a leading role in the current economical development and defining the current push in education”

- Victor Roseilez, The Changing Face of Education (2007)

“The neo-liberal version of globalisation, particularly as

implemented by bilateral, multilateral and

international organisations, is reflected in an educational agenda that supports or

imposes particular policies for evaluation,

financing, assessment, standards, teacher-training, curriculum, instruction and testing.”

- Burbules and Torres, Globalisation and Education: Critical Perspectives (2000)

“successful corporations must primarily

produce brands as opposed to

products.”

- Klein, ‘Globalisation Economic Handbook’ (2010)

“It is time to recognise that the true

tutors of our children are not school

teachers or university professors but film

makers, advertising executives and

pop culture purveyors, Disney does

more than Duke; Spielburg outweighs

Stanford; MTV trumps MIT.”- Benjamin Barber