15. BEYOND HOMOGENISATION OF GLOBAL EDUCATION

Do alternative pedagogies such as Steiner Education have anything to offer an emergent global/ising world? i GLOBALISATION AS A HOMOGENISING INFLUENCE One of the greatest obstacles to creating learning societies for the future is the model of Western culture—and by default, the model of education—being promoted by globalisation. Sometimes called 'Americanisation ' of the 'rest of the world', the processes of globalisation have amplified the modernity project. The primary tools of globalisation—other than economic ‘development’—are mass education and communication technologies, particularly the Internet and the mass media ('virtual colonisation') (Gupta, 2000). Providing both opportunities and threats, globalisation’s promoters argue that it is creating an improved economic climate within which educational, health and other socio-cultural 'improvements ' will thrive. However, the ‘development ’ model foisted upon the 'developing ' world by the West, in the name of modernisation has been regarded for decades by man