Subject ID: EDUC.
3
Subject Description: Building and Enhancing New Literacies Unit 1: Globalization and Multicultural
Across the Curriculum Literacies
Compiled by:
Ms. Cresiljen M. Bongo
Instructor
“While globalization will make the worlds smaller and more accessible, we must continue to appreciate its
vibrant diversity”
Jean Philippe Courtois
In the era of technology and collaboration, the world has become smaller. At the wink of an eye and a click of a
finger, ideas can be promptly shared and negotiated with the world. This massive avenue for communication has
posed tremendous opportunities and diverse challenges alike to the education movement (Abao, E et al,2019).
Students in this generation play a significant role in this movement especially when confronted with the
challenging roles of pursuing global competitiveness while preserving local culture. That’s why there is a need for
a reasonable adaptation of these essential realities in their day-to-day encounter through formal and informal
learning engagement in order to give equitable value to their academic pursuits. The challenge here is while you
savor and address the needs of the global market, there is a corresponding responsibility for you to continue to
preserve and even promote your culture.
Learning Outcomes
At the end of this unit, the students should be able to:
express their insights on globalization and multicultural literacies;
cite the benefits and challenges of crossing international borders while preserving and promoting their
culture;
share the impact of globalization and multicultural literacies to education; and
demonstrate competencies actualizing the value of unity despite diversity.
LESSON 1
Evolution of Human Societies
What is Globalization?
According to Joseph E. Stiglitz (2002), globalization is the closer integration of the countries and
peoples of the world brought about by the enormous reduction of costs of transformation and
communication, and the breaking down of artificial barriers to the flows of goods, services, capital,
knowledge, and people across borders.
Held, et. al. (1999) defined that globalization captures elements of a widespread perception that
there is a broadening, deepening and speeding up of the world-wide interconnectedness in all aspects of
life, from the cultural to the political, the financial to the environmental. He added that globalization can
usefully be conceived as a process (or set of process) which embodies a transformation in the spatial
organization of social relations and transactions, generating transcontinental or interregional flows and
networks of activity, interaction and power.
Four Types of Change:
1. It involves a stretching of social, political and economic activities across political frontiers, regions
and continents.
2. It suggests that intensification, or the growing magnitude, of interconnectedness and flows of trade,
investment, finance, migration, culture, etc.
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3. The growing extensity, intensity, and velocity of global interconnectedness can be linked to a
speeding up of global interactions and processes, as the evolution of world-wide systems of transport
and communication increases the velocity of the diffusion if ideas, goods, information, capital, and
people.
4. The growing extensity, intensity, and velocity of global interactions can be associated with their
deepening impact such that the effects of distant events can be highly significant elsewhere and even the
most local developments may come to have enormous global consequences. In this sense, the
boundaries between domestic matters and global affairs can become increasingly blurred.
Cole (2018) shared that according to sociologists, globalization is an ongoing process that involves
interconnected changes in the economic, cultural, social and political spheres of society. Culturally, it
refers to the global spread and integration of ideas, values, norms, behaviors, and ways of life.
Politically, it refers to the development of forms of governance that operate at the global scale whose
policies and rules cooperative nations are expected to abide.
Beck (2000), defines globalization as a process through which transformational actors undermine
sovereign national states with varying prospect of power, direction, identities, and network.
What is Global Literacy?
Global literacy aims to address issues of globalization, racism, diversity and social justice. It
requires awareness and action, consistent with a broad understanding of humanity, the planet, and the
impact of a human decision on both. It also aims to empower students with knowledge and take action to
make a positive impact in the world and their local community.
According to the Ontario Ministry of Education (2015), a global citizen should possess the following
characteristics:
1. respect for humans regardless of race, gender, religion or political perspectives
2. respect for diversity and various perspectives
3. promote sustainable patterns of living
4. appreciate the natural world and demonstrate respect on the rights of all living things
Global Competence refers to skills, values and behaviors that prepare young people to thrive in a
diverse, interconnected and rapidly changing world. It is the ability to become engaged citizens and
collaborative problem solvers who are ready for the workforce.
Promoting Global Competence in Schools
Schools play a crucial role in helping young people to develop global competence. They can provide
opportunities to critically examine global developments that are significant to both the world and to their
own lives. They can teach students how to critically, effectively and responsibly use digital information
and social media platforms.
The following are the reasons why global competence is necessary:
1. To live harmoniously in multicultural communities
Education for global competence can promote cultural awareness and purposeful interactions in
increasingly diverse societies.
2. To thrive in a changing labor market
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Education for global competence can boost employability through effective communication and
appropriate behavior within diverse teams using technology in accessing and connecting to the world.
3. To use media platforms effectively and responsibly.
Radical transformations in digital technologies have shaped young people’s outlook on the
world, their interaction with others and their perception of themselves. Online networks, social media
and interactive technologies give rise to new concepts of learning, wherein young people exercise to
take their freedom on what and how they learn.
4. To support the sustainable development goals
Education for global competence can help form new generations who care about global issues
and engage in social, political, economic and environmental discussions.
Dimensions of Global Competence: Implications to Education
Dimension 1: Examine issues of local, global and cultural significance
This dimension refers to globally competent people's practices of effectively utilizing knowledge
about the world and critical reasoning in forming their own opinion about a global issue. People, who
acquire a mature level of development in this dimension, use higher-order thinking skills, such as
selecting and weighing appropriate evidence to support arguments about global developments. Most
likely, globally competent students can draw on and combine the disciplinary knowledge and thinking
styles learned in schools to ask questions, analyze data and propositions, explain phenomena, and
develop a position concerning a local, global or cultural issue. Hence, globally competent people
effectively use and create both traditional and digital media (Boix Mansilla and Jackson, 2011).
Dimension 2: Understand and appreciate the perspectives and world views of others
This dimension highlights that globally competent people are willing and capable of considering
other people's perspectives and behaviors from multiple viewpoints to examine their own assumptions.
This in turn, implies a profound respect for and interest in others with their concept of reality and
emotions. Individuals with this competence also consider and appreciate the connections that enable
them to bridge in differences and create common ground. They retain their cultural identity while
becoming aware of the cultural values and beliefs of people around them (Fennes and Hapgood, 1997).
Dimension 3: Engage in open, appropriate and effective interactions across cultures
This dimension describes what globally competent individuals can do when they interact with
people from different cultures. They understand the cultural norms, interactive styles and degrees of
formality of intercultural contexts, and they can flexibly adapt their behavior and communication
manner through respectful dialog even with marginalized groups. Therefore, it emphasizes individuals'
capacity to interact with others across differences in ways that are open, appropriate and effective
(Barrett, et. al., 2014).
Dimension 4: Take action for collective well-being and sustainable development
This dimension focuses on young people's role as active and responsible members of society and
refers to individual's readiness to respond to a given local, global or intercultural issue or situation. It
recognizes that young people have multiple realms of influence ranging from personal and local to
digital and global. Globally competent people create opportunities to get engaged to improve living
conditions in their communities and build a just, peaceful, inclusive and an environmentally sustainable
world.
Integrating Global and Intercultural Issues in the Curriculum
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For global education to translate abstraction into action, there is a need to integrate global issues and
topics into existing subjects (Klein, 2013; UNESCO, 2014). In practice, content knowledge related to
global competence is integrated in the curriculum and taught in specific courses. Therefore, students can
understand those issues across ages, starting in early childhood when presenting them in
developmentally appropriate ways (Boix Mansilla and Jackson, 2011; UNESCO, 2015).
For global education to translate abstraction into action, there is a need to integrate global issues and
topics into existing subjects (Klein, 2013; UNESCO, 2014). In practice, content knowledge related to
global competence is integrated in the curriculum and taught in specific courses. Therefore, students can
understand those issues across ages, starting in early childhood when presenting them in
developmentally appropriate ways (Boix Mansilla and Jackson, 2011; UNESCO, 2015).
Therefore, Gaudelli (2006) affirmed that teachers must have clear ideas on global and intercultural
issues that students may reflect on. They also need to collaboratively research topics and carefully
design the curriculum while giving students multiple opportunities to learn those issues.
Teachers may also engage in professional learning communities and facilitate peer learning.
More so, teaching about minority cultures in different subject areas entails accurate content
information about ethnically and racially diverse groups and experiences.
Curricula should promote the integration of knowledge of other people, places and perspectives
in the classroom throughout the year (UNESCO, 2014a), rather than using a "tourist approach",
or giving students a superficial glimpse of life in different countries now and then.
Textbooks and other instructional materials can also distort cultural and ethnic differences (Gay,
2015). Teachers and their students should critically examine textbooks and other teaching
resources and supplement information when necessary.
Connecting global and intercultural topics to the reality, contexts and needs of the learning group
is an effective methodological approach to make them relevant to adolescents (North-South
Centre of the Council of Europe, 2012). People learn better and become more engaged when
they get connected with the content and when they see its relevance to their lives and their
immediate environment (Suárez Orozco and Todorova, 2008).
Pedagogies for promoting global competence
1. Group-based cooperative project work
This can improve reasoning and collaborative skills. It involves topic-or theme-based tasks
suitable for various levels and ages, in which goals and content are negotiated and learners can create
their own learning materials that they present and evaluate together. Learners, participating in
cooperative tasks, soon would realize that to be efficient, they need to be respectful, attentive, honest
and empathic.
2. Class Discussion
It is an interactive approach that encourages proactive listening and responding to ideas
expressed by peers. By exchanging views in the classroom, students learn that there is no single right
answer to a problem, understand the reasons why others hold different views and reflect on the origins
of their own beliefs.
3. Service Learning
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It is another tool that can help students develop multiple global skills through real-world
experience. This requires learners to participate in organized activities that are based on what has been
learned in the classroom and that benefit their communities. After the activities, learners reflect critically
on their service experience to gain further understanding of course content, and enhance their sense of
role in society with regard to civic, social, economic and political issues.
4. The Story Circle Approach
Intends students to practice key intercultural skills, including respect, cultural self-awareness ad
empathy. The students in groups of 5-6, take turns sharing a 3-minute story from their own experience
based on specific prompts.
LESSON 2
MULTICULTURAL LITERACIES
Multicultural literacies pave the way for global understanding. The uniqueness of each culture
gives an aggregative value towards the attainment of peace and unity among nations. Academicians
strive to put a premium on the integration of cultural education in all levels of learning in order to make
sure that students who are the citizens of the nation are able to strengthen awareness of their culture,
preserve and promote such and have it known to the world. Eventually once shared, cultures of the
world will be understood and deeply appreciated. In so doing, people across the world live in harmony
despite diversity.
What is Multicultural Literacy?
Taylor and Hoechsmen (2011) shared that multicultural literacy is defined through the idea of an
inclusive and diverse education system where students of all cultural backgrounds are provided with the
respect and recognition, they deserve concerning both social justice and social difference in the
classroom.
Boutte (2008) discussed how by fostering both critical thinking and culturally sensitive pedagogies to
bring explicit attention to society-related cultural issues, in hope to positively impact diverse learners in
the classroom through giving recognition to the barriers they may face through educational institutions.
O’Byrne and Smith (2015) stated how through the use of multicultural literacy, culturally marginalized
students feel more respected and comfortable in the classroom as they genuinely feel their needs are
being met and their voices are being heard.
Banks and Stark (2003) stated that although literacy is essential that all students acquire the basic
literacy and computational skills, this is enough. Students should also acquire the skills, attitudes and
commitments needed to reflective, moral and active citizen in a troubled global world. In addition to
teaching basic literacy skills, and commitments essential to take action to make the world more just and
humane.
Bsndev(2004) presented that multicultural literacy is awareness that culture impacts behavior and
beliefs. It is an awareness and appreciation of different beliefs, appearances and lifestyles. Further
multicultural literacy promotes understanding reading multicultural books and stories which provides
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cultural awareness of others; it provides a look at history, custom, values, and language of a particular
culture group as well as understanding among different cultures.
Boles (2006) discussed the goals in teaching children multicultural literature. These cover the increase of
self-worth and greater chance for successful future; the achievement of educational equality, working
towards cultural pluralism, creation of a sense of empowerment in students, the ability to work in groups
and teaching from a multicultural perspective. This means educators must challenge assumptions and
stereotypes. For example, teachers need to select literature that does not promote stereotypical
perspectives. Also, teachers must see that culture, race, gender, religion, socio-economic status, and
ability are variables in the learning process (Ford, Harris & Howard, 1999).
The aforementioned ideas of experts on the value of multicultural education are so succinct that each
academician is challenged to see the uniqueness of each one in relation to the varied cultural
background, physical capabilities, intellectual acuity, financial capacity and the like. This would serve as
a powerful tool towards global understanding as these addresses gigantic challenges that beset the
general system of education.
Proactively this becomes an opportunity to huddle various entities that usher each one to become
active players of society. In the course of active interaction between and among individuals with diverse
needs, values system is henceforth noted. Thus, the role of education is so intricate that each one’s
varied experiences are given attention regardless of sex, color, and religion. This is a strong foundation
on making multicultural education alive in every learning environment.
Tips to Foster Engaging Learning Culture
In the process of becoming part of the world, there is a need to actively immerse yourselves in the
different cultures of the world through a meaningful learning engagement.
The following tips are suggested:
Create new circle of friends. In this era of technology, invite local and international friends in a
social network. Know them and share stories with one other: family, educational practices,
local traditions, and the like.
Offer time and resources. Once friendship is established, be ready to share your time and
knowledge so you able to learn from each other. In the course of doing so, you are starting to
build a good relationship.
Network ideas. In the process of further knowing each other and the relationship has
engendered trust, you and your friend can recommend each other for more friends. Through
this, you can share with each other in terms of your interest, plans, etc.
Note similarities and differences of beliefs and practices. As the network expands, you need to
note similarities and differences of your beliefs and practices. In the process, you further learn
from each other and probably enjoy each other company. At this point, you have
gradually learn from each other culture thus, eventually adjust and immerse into it as
well.
Explore opportunities. Once you have learned from each other’s culture, you can offer chances
of inviting him/her to be part of your academic activities like requesting him/her for evaluation
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of your and your classmates’ course output.
This can be done vice-versa.
Care of each other. From time to time, you check on each other’s status and learn how to show
care and concern for her/him. This is an important element to strengthen relationship. You
need to preserve it. Sometimes family members become part of such relationship.
This is something you need to deeply value.
Transfer Learning. To make online communication with friends more meaningful and
fruitful way, you need to share experiences with your classmates in the classroom and vice-
versa. It is through this that you can truly claim that learning is significant because it’s
shared with/transferred with others.
In today’s world connection plays a powerful agent towards globalization and immersing into
other’s cultures. So, start to C-O-N-N-E-C-T.
REFERENCES:
Abao, E et al. (2019). Building and Enhancing New Literacies Across the Curriculum. Mutya Publishing
De Leon, E. (2020). Building and Enhancing New Literacies Across the Curriculum. Lorimar Publishing
Inc.
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