Globalization policies for educational development and the attendant issues of social justice: The case of Taiwan

Educational policy makers were probably among the first groups that had made the term “globalization” an agenda in policymaking in Taiwan during the past two decades. In fact, they have successfully launched several policies under the name of globalization since early 1990s. This paper aims at examining (1) the themes, rationales and strategies of these globalization policies, and (2) the controversial issues related to social justice that each policy has brought forth. By drawing evidence from two “discourse analysis” studies of mine, one of which was granted by National Science Council (Taiwan) in 2003-2005 and the other by Chinese Culture University (Taipei) in 2011, this paper specifies four distinctive policies that have been put into practice so far. The major findings are summarized as follows:

 

Policy Variants	Time Period	Social Justice Issues
1. Globalization as keeping pace with the world trends of education, such as the neo-liberalist reforms.	early 1990s – mid-2000s	The possibility of upward mobility for most working class kids declined.
2. Globalization as skipping China while linking Taiwan directly with the globe.	late 1990s – late 2000s	Besides social justice, the policy focused mainly on ideological struggle against China.
3. Globalization as enhancing English teaching, especially in primary schools.	Since late 1990s	The rural-urban divide has further revealed itself by a bimodal distribution of English test score in recent years.
4. Globalization as promoting internationalization in higher learning institutions.	Since early 2000s	Only a few privileged, research-intensive universities benefit from this policy. However, most of their students are disproportionately of middle- and upper-class origins.