TY - CHAP AB - The recent trend in globalization has had a positive impact on international education, in that it has compelled many societies to transcend national boundaries in an effort to exchange knowledge and expertize in teaching, curriculum and education policy. The practice of cultural borrowing and lending, in which one country adopts or borrows policies and practices from another, is a significant feature of international education, and has been accelerated by these globalizing trends. According to Tilly, internationalization of “capital, trade, industrial organization, communications, political institutions, science, disease, atmospheric pollution, vindictive violence, and organized crime has been producing a net movement toward globalization since the middle of the twentieth century” (Tilly, 2004, p. 13). In the area of international education, an intensification in international communication and cooperation has had a positive impact on educational research, planning and policy development (Schriewer & Martinez, 2004), and may, as some have argued, brought about a convergence of patterns in the organization of education across national boundaries. Nevertheless, globalization in education carries with it the potential to undermine developing and transitional societies in their efforts to maintain indigenous approaches to educating future citizens – a potential that may contribute to the “clash of localities” that is inherent in the globalization process, in which local tradition is frequently at odds with international trends (Mitter, 2001). A measured approach to transnational projects in education development will ensure that the process of cultural borrowing does not lead to the inadvertent export of ideas and values that are at variance with a given country's social, political and historical context, while simultaneously allowing for knowledge transfer across borders. Cultural borrowing is a necessary element in the transfer process, as it may provide the transitioning society with a model in the form of a curriculum, set of standards, or practices. However, as Dewey points out in Democracy and Education, any model or “ideal” must be adapted to meet the needs of the local context:We cannot set up, out of our heads, something we regard as an ideal society. We must base our conception upon societies which actually exist, in order to have any assurance that our ideal is a practicable one. But, as we have just seen, the ideal cannot simply repeat the traits which are actually found. The problem is to extract the desirable traits of forms of community life which actually exist, and employ them to criticize undesirable features and suggest improvement. (Dewey, 1997, p. 45) VL - 6 SN - 978-1-84855-185-5, 978-1-84855-184-8/1479-358X DO - 10.1016/S1479-358X(08)06006-3 UR - https://doi.org/10.1016/S1479-358X(08)06006-3 AU - Price-Rom Alison ED - Rodney K. Hopson ED - Carol Camp Yeakey ED - Francis Musa Boakari PY - 2008 Y1 - 2008/01/01 TI - What to teach our global citizens: applying transnational civics frameworks in four post-communist states T2 - Power, Voice and the Public Good: Schooling and Education in Global Societies T3 - Advances in Education in Diverse Communities PB - Emerald Group Publishing Limited SP - 149 EP - 170 Y2 - 2024/05/15 ER -