Commentary to Part I: Perspectives on the Challenge of Globalization

Abstract

There is a growing worldwide unease about the effects of globalization on the education of school education particularly of those most marginalized in society. The impetus to compete in systems of education, whether at the international level through comparative data derived from PISA tests or through systems of school accountability at the national and institutional level, has come to dominate both discourse and practice in schools. This is a commentary on three chapters that reflect the sense that there is something drastically wrong with the way that young people are educated in modern education systems that are dominated by neoliberal ideology and the pressures of performativity. Although the articles emanate from particular social and cultural settings, there is a unifying thread in the chapters that education systems are failing many young people. All three chapters show a concern with Vygotsky’s contribution to an understanding of learning through his concept of the social situation of development. The chapter concludes with the consideration that learning must involve risk and uncertainty if young people are to learn through their engagement with social situations of development. In this sense, the cultures of institutions that resist neoliberal pressures of performativity are key to potential development of marginalized learners.