Explaining the Role of the Educational System in Confronting the Impacts of Globalization on National Identity

1. Introduction

The foundational view presented in this article is that the mission of education in every country is to train efficient human resources who possess the necessary beliefs, attitudes, and inclinations for the sustainable progress and development of that society in all cultural, social, political, economic, and other domains. Obviously, such a thing requires the formation of national identity in the graduates of the education system, which itself has two axes: awareness of collective identity and a sense of belonging to it (Mashayekh, 2008). Iranian education, if it wants to prepare for life in the age of globalization, must first consolidate and elevate the national identity and value system of children and adolescents. Only then can national values be seen in interaction with and in connection with global values (Azad Armaki, 2007).

One of the social and cultural goals of the education system is to consolidate national identity among students and youth of a country; from this perspective, if education fails to do this, it can be said that on the one hand it has not been effective in the part of efficiency and effectiveness related to the realization of a country’s national goals, and on the other hand, in confronting the process of globalization, it is also unable to have a constructive interaction (Afroogh, 2001). Given what was said, the question of this paper is: Has the education system played an effective role in consolidating the national identity of youth so that it can have a constructive interaction with globalization? This article, which uses review and library findings, first defines globalization, especially in its cultural dimension, then addresses the pathology of national identity, and finally examines the strategies of the education system in confronting the phenomenon of globalization and national identity.

2. Globalization

Giving a comprehensive definition of globalization that is accepted by everyone is somewhat difficult due to the disagreement among researchers about its nature. In its most basic meaning, globalization means the shrinking of the world on the one hand and a rapid increase in awareness of the whole world on the other (Afroogh, 2001).

Held: Globalization is the process or processes of transforming the structure and organization of spatial-temporal relations and the formation of more or less global flows and networks (Held et al., 2000). Giddens: Considers the process of globalization as the achievement of disrupting the ancient order of space and time. The complexity and multifaceted nature of globalization lies in its antiquity, speed, and pervasiveness. Therefore, globalization has a history as old as modernity (Giddens, 2005). Despite Robertson, globalization is a concept that refers both to the compression of the world and to the intensification of global consciousness – a process that has led to global interdependence and awareness of the world as an integrated whole in the twentieth century (Robertson, 2004). Globalization, in simple language, is the process of socializing, integrating, accepting people and their thoughts, and adapting for logical and effective connection that ends racial, gender, religious, and ethnic diversity in social, cultural-economic, educational, and environmental behavior (Karami Pour, 2003). What seems common among different theorists in the concept of globalization is the communicative dimension of this concept. This means that the world is witnessing pervasive communications, and with these communications, time and space are transcended in some way.

3. Globalization, Globalism

Pourathoun (2004) in a definition of globalization considers it a multifaceted phenomenon that has entered various tissues of social, economic, political, legal, cultural, military, technological action and also the environment. Therefore, it must be said that globalization is a public matter among the people of the world, and globalism is an idea that America is pursuing to build a new world in the absence of the phenomenon of the new world order, to the extent that many American public education specialists have criticized and condemned the poor performance and delay in globalizing the educational system (Ell-Rose & Desai, 2005).Globalism, in its least impact, has caused two contradictory results:

-Passivity and surrender of a group of people who consider the lifestyle of modern culture as their ideal.

-Aggression and terror of groups who consider the lifestyle of previous centuries as their absolute ideal.These two attitudes have fundamental differences with each other. The components of the “passive and surrendering” attitude are unconditional acceptance of the goals, plans, and actions of dominant global powers, transferring the duties and authority of the government to the global market, abandoning national thoughts and ideas in the continuation of affairs, deregulation at the national level, weakening national authority of the country, blind following of the foreign political system, and acceptance of individualistic, relativistic, and pragmatic philosophy and lifestyle. We have named this concept of globalization “Western globalism” and considered it different from the interests of national identity and the national cultural value system (Lotf Abadi & Norouzi, 2004).

4. Cultural Globalization

Culture consists of the set of acquired behaviors and belief characteristics of the members of a society. People living in a society have behavioral, belief, and cultural patterns that are in accordance with that society and are passed from generation to generation. Normal communication in society with others makes it easy to acquire culture and its characteristics. The talent for speaking, learning language, establishing communication with other humans, etc., are tools that are effective in the mechanism of cultural transmission. The survival of human society depends on the transfer of knowledge achievements, experimental findings, cultural values, traditional beliefs, and social patterns from one generation to the next. The mechanism of this transfer is performed by education (Ashofteh Tehrani, 2008).

Cultural globalization consists of the homogenization of cultures. In the age of globalization, culture takes on a broad meaning and becomes transboundary. As a result of the expansion of communication and information among different societies and the intensification of human awareness in this field, cultures have inevitably become acquainted with each other and we are witnessing a global culture (Joudaki, 2008).

The cultural dimension of globalization is the most important and effective dimension in terms of impact on the education system. Globalization causes the penetration of cultural values of other societies into the society. It also creates multicultural classes with the growth of the migration phenomenon and the importance of learning to live together and its requirements, which include learning self-knowledge, respecting others, and learning a sense of responsibility and cooperation with others. Therefore, considering that education in Iran also has important duties to confront this social process, it can preserve its ethnic and indigenous culture and, with the cooperation of other countries, by correctly using the opportunities arising from globalization and eliminating the negative consequences of globalization, reach a worthy education. In the meantime, Iran’s education system, along with other education systems in the world, is exposed to the process of globalization and must try to make optimal use of the opportunities that globalization offers to the education of societies and at the same time develop indigenous and individual characteristics in students and enable them to know the world and other cultures (Aali, 2003).

5. Identity, National Identity

Identity means being and existence, something that is a means of identifying an individual, i.e., the set of individual traits and behavioral characteristics by which an individual is recognized as a social group and distinguished from others (Ashraf, 2007). Identity is related to the similar mentality that an individual has with another; as Stuart Hall says, identity is related to people who speak similarly, think similarly, and have similar feelings. Therefore, identity is always defined from the position of the other; in fact, what causes a kind of collective identity is the repetition of similar desires of all individuals and the reflection of the individual in the group and in the other (Ameli, 2007).

National identity consists of a sense of belonging to a group of humans through sharing some cultural and quasi-cultural elements. In other words, national identity is a kind of feeling or awareness of belonging to a nation and is always reproduced by resorting to various cultural elements. Therefore, Anthony Smith, one of the most prominent theorists of nationalism, considers national identity as the continuous reproduction and reinterpretation of values, symbols, memories, myths, and traditions that are the distinguishing elements of each nation. In terms of function, this sense of belonging has a high ability to provide a sense of distinctiveness and continuity, including providing a sense of security for humans. It is this remarkable ability to meet the psychological needs of individuals and groups that has been the secret of the expansion and continuity of nationalism and national identity in recent centuries (Golmohammadi, 2007).

6. Globalization, National Identity

Regarding globalization in the cultural dimension, there are two views:

-Cultural imperialism: Some theorists believe that globalization is under the domination of the capitalist system and powerful multinational companies, and therefore economic globalization brings a kind of cultural globalization. This understanding of globalization is the same as the theory of cultural imperialism. In this view, there is the idea of penetration and aggression into other cultures, the idea of destroying customs, traditions, and national characteristics of a culture and thus negating it, and ultimately considers the process of globalization in the service of expanding consumer culture.

-Cultural interaction: But some theorists believe that the call of globalization in cultural fields, like other fields, is a legitimate and acceptable call because there is exchange. In other words, cultures influence each other. In this view, insistence and absolute superiority of any culture is rooted in prejudice. In this regard, while accepting cultural pluralism as a reality, cultural understanding, access to common values, mutual respect, and international participation are considered effective factors in forming a global culture. Therefore, the cultural game on the global stage is not a win-lose game, and a kind of coexistence, mixing, and cultural interaction is also possible (Kardan, 2007).The relationship between globalization and identity, contrary to what some writers have imagined, is not a one-sided relationship; that is, globalization does not mean the weakening of national identities (Kowsari, 2007).

Globalization increases processes through which communication networks and production systems connect local and global levels to each other, so that social relations can no longer be imagined only in the form of local, and our daily life is structured in such a way that social interactions across the world connect distant places to each other in such a way that the events of each place give birth to events that occur kilometers away. Meanwhile, different countries that are in this communication network each have a specific culture distinct from other cultures that is considered their cultural heritage or indigenous values, and their national identity depends on preserving their indigenous characteristics and try to preserve them. On the other hand, the process of globalization calls all countries toward a single global system with its own values and culture. This factor has caused countries to place the preservation of national values on the agenda of education and pay attention to this issue, while the process of globalization is expanding day by day and calls countries to interact and communicate with each other and create a common global culture (Scholte, 2003).

7. Pathology of National Identity

Jalal Al-e Ahmad in his book “Westoxication” has well pointed to the identity crisis of third-world societies in the face of – as he calls it – this monster of the new centuries, where he writes: “We have not been able to preserve our ‘cultural, historical’ personality against the machine and its inevitable invasion, but we have been annihilated.” The point is that we have not been able to show a measured and calculated reaction to this monster of the new centuries (Al-e Ahmad, 1983). Globalization under the influence of external factors, especially Western ones, has a great impact on creating individual and social identity of non-Western countries, but this does not mean that it can impose its cultural patterns on other societies exactly; rather, each society, according to its history, culture, political and economic situation, and the performance of families, media, and education, is affected by globalization, and the individual and collective identity of the people of this society faces problems, and people who have problems in identity formation create many problems for themselves and others (Sharafi, 2002). Some of the identity-damaging factors of national identity that are especially effective on the young generation are briefly as follows:

7-1 The phenomenon of biculturalism: Marriage with foreign nationals, parents’ residence in foreign countries, spending leisure time abroad, migrations and foreign trips especially during the personality formation period of children and adolescents, have faced the formation of national identity for some of the young generation with problems and have had undesirable effects on their cultural beliefs and in some cases have led to the phenomenon of “becoming bicultural.” The most important problem that this phenomenon creates is that the bicultural young generation neither properly knows its national culture, which in fact is alienated from it, nor can fully absorb and internalize the elements of foreign culture. Therefore, the national identity of such a generation becomes a complex and unsolvable phenomenon (Sharafi, 2002). The phenomenon of biculturalism in Iran is important due to having a pluralistic society full of various social, cultural, linguistic, and ethnic groups. The main responsibility of educating citizens who respect the equal and human rights of all their compatriots and protect the human dignity of all of them in practice lies with the education system, which must practically and in the course of students’ relationships with each other and with other people and groups make them active and responsible citizens. This work is also a sign of educating global citizens and respecting human rights (Lotf Abadi, 2006).

7-2 Extreme nationalism: According to some experts, the greatest changes that have occurred in the phenomenon of “national identity” so far have been in the period after the Cold War until now. Undoubtedly, the motivation that led to the strengthening of nationalism in the mentioned societies was to create immunity against foreign threats; however, it is necessary to distinguish between these two phenomena, i.e., “national identity” and “nationalism.” National identity means understanding the characteristics and distinguishing attributes of a nation that include the values, honors, and intellectual and cultural supports of that society. Therefore, based on such a definition, understanding and awareness of national identity is a prerequisite for recognizing the roles and duties that teenagers and youth must perform towards their nation. Whereas nationalism is usually explained in opposition to other nations and in separating the interests and borders of self from others. This characteristic is more about separation between different nations (Kakoujoybari, 2004).

7-3 Lack of awareness: Attachment to “national identity” originates from awareness of national characteristics, glories, and values. Basically, knowing any phenomenon causes familiarity with it, and conversely, lack of knowledge causes alienation; unity creates intimacy and affection and creates bonds between man and that phenomenon, and alienation causes distance, separation, and distance from that phenomenon. There is a famous proverb that expresses this very reality. Its meaning is: “People are enemies of what they do not know and are ignorant of.” One of the social critics writes: Only thinking and studying national self-awareness in the field of national culture leads to the preservation of identity and authenticity and progress. Honoring great scholars and wise men is in fact a motivation for the young generation to turn to national glories and honors, and all these are effective in creating awareness and knowledge about “national identity” (Zamani Nia, 1983).

7-4 Westoxication: The West in the expression is the West or the sunset of sacred truth and the emergence of humanity that considers itself the first and last and the center of everything and the owner of everything, and considers its perfection to be that it seeks everything, even the sacred world, for itself. The approach of the young generation to Western culture, when accompanied by conscious criticism, examination, and evaluation, is not in conflict with the formation of “national identity,” and this is a kind of modernity of cultures. In contrast, a passive encounter with the achievements of Western culture disintegrates the national culture and consequently leaves no room for the presence of “national identity.” Cultural interaction is also a wise method that causes more desire for national cultures and also helps the peaceful process of nations. Unfortunately, the major problem of some segments of the young generation is West-belief and Westoxication, and to that extent, it damages their national identity (Al-e Ahmad, 1983).

7-5 Negation of national glories: Emphasizing historical knowledge as one of the sources of knowledge paves the way for understanding national identity. Valuing the history lesson and other related fields such as culture, history of civilization, and history of cultural heritage makes adolescents and youth achieve a deeper understanding of national belief, national identity, and national glories. In this regard, one of the ways to form national identity is to use national philosophy and educational goals. Teaching and education methods in any system are derived from the governing educational philosophy. Accordingly, the formulation and setting of the philosophy of education in the system of the Islamic Republic, which is in accordance with the strategic goals of this system, affects all educational movements, actions, and methods (Bagheri, 2003).

8. Impact of Globalization on Education

Global education, human resource development, global capacity growth, and multidimensional citizenship skills are the consequences of globalization in the field of education. “What is worth learning in today’s world?” as three drivers of managing this period of transition to new global developments: Citizenship skills, familiarity with various rights that have also come in our cultural literature today, looking to the future, discussion of interaction in the fields of culture, economy, and society, the infrastructure of new biological knowledge, discussion of quality of life and inequalities and the issue of justice, discussion of sustainable development, your ability to face an unspecified world, an uncertain future, and … life skills, not a mind full of facts, the requirements of raising resilient children and citizens and promoting resilience culture.

Empowering human resources and establishing its connection with national and social identity to improve working life.

Respect for common human values among humans, values that are human per se, and values that have cultural interpretations for indigenous identities. Moral capacities, tolerance, communication, delicate feelings, in fact positive feelings towards phenomena and human relations, communication skills, creativity, autonomy, the discussion that you want to learn what and learn how to learn continuously.

Multidimensional citizenship skills meaning that you are not only a citizen of Iran, you are a global citizen, and global education means preparing you to live with these skills. It is multidimensional citizenship skills.

Participation with others, promoting systematic and critical thinking. That is, be able to criticize education, not the teacher; criticize politics, not the politician; criticize the outputs of a system, not just one system; organize the components of a system as a teacher or student, but criticize education, not the teacher (Sorkar Arani, 2009).

Accordingly, the Iranian education system must equip its graduates at different levels with various communication and information skills and avoid focusing solely on the knowledge dimension in the teaching-learning process.

9. The Role of the Education System in Confronting Globalization and Preserving Values

Given the main responsibility of education in consolidating national identity and at the same time confronting globalization and educating global citizens, we present national strategies at the cultural and educational level:

1- In the cultural field, more modern and up-to-date methods should be used to strengthen religious and national identity.

2- Since the motivation for this explanation is globalization and the role of education in preserving national identity, this strategy is written with double sensitivity. The reality is that the infrastructure of all cultural actions in education, especially in pre-school and the first years of elementary school, is located. The characteristics and attitudes of the next generation are laid in this age period. The fourth-generation youth of the revolution will gradually enter pre-school centers. Building a creative and meaning-seeking generation is formed in this age period. The most basic strands of personality are laid in these years. That the goals of education target the highest level of excellent cognitive processes, i.e., creativity, is one of the strategic issues of the education system.

3- Policy-making and supervision in education under the conditions of globalization requires paying more attention in practice to the share of local planning, local policy-making, provincial implementation and supervision related to local, ethnic, linguistic, and regional needs; this can, with considerations, lead to convergence in Iranian-Islamic identity instead of divergence. Although this necessity has been relatively addressed in other cultural sectors in recent years (Kakoujoybari, 2004).

4- Given the increasing trend of new knowledge and technology production on a global scale, reviewing the content of the curriculum and teaching method is necessary, and replacing what has become obsolete in the curriculum content with up-to-date scientific knowledge and considering the necessary place in the curriculum for knowing cultural-national and ethnic identity are among the areas of attention in qualitative growth of education. Tedesco (former head of the International Bureau of Education in Geneva) said: “Based on the data, one can accept the hypothesis that the curriculum content in developing countries is incapable of representing cultural heritage on a national and ethnic scale on the one hand and offering scientific culture on a global scale on the other” (Mashayekh, 2008).

5- In addition to the above, we need to revise our understanding of the philosophy of education and adapt it to life in the present era and consequently educational programs and curricula, textbooks, teaching methods, and teacher training. This requires reviewing educational goals. Reviewing goals is a good starting point for creating change and transformation. Education in countries facing the challenges of globalization must adopt these approaches: emphasis on the comprehensiveness of education, emphasis on critical thinking, educating global citizens, focusing on abstract concepts, using a holistic approach (as opposed to a fragmented approach), enhancing students’ ability to manipulate symbols, removing the distinction between mental and physical work, and encouraging students to work in groups (Osler & Starkey, 2005).

6- Comparing different cultures, as far as they are comparable, and examining cultural commonalities and placing them in the education program. Accordingly, education becomes two-dimensional: one dimension is its universality, which can place cultural commonalities as part of the education program; one dimension is particularities, meaning an Iranian person must have the feeling of being Iranian. The existence of these two dimensions together in the education program is necessary (Lotf Abadi, 2006).

7- Having a holistic view of education: Everything that exists and also all objects of life are interdependent for maintaining their existence, welfare, and progress. In relation to the human environment, the human being has an internal ecology that in turn affects society and global ecology. Meanwhile, education is an effective tool for building a healthy environment and improving the quality of life through maintaining a adaptive relationship between man and his surroundings. With a holistic view of education, one can encourage a person to constantly balance with nature and society connected to their environment. Education must provide for human nature and the nature of the world and all such things. Therefore, environmental damage, direct or indirect, is our own result; therefore, establishing a relationship with the environment to repair the ecological structure must be taught because it is done by humans and to see it, balance is performed in the ecosystem. The content of holistic education should be based on simplicity, acting together on human values, knowledge to serve human values, valuing students, and raising their awareness about inequality and injustice inside and outside school. Three small components of spiritual education in school that must be acquired are as follows: Moral education such as integrating or transferring a set of values, beliefs, attitudes, habits, skills, and interests.

Moral education such as a kind of life experience that occurs in certain parts of the environment. Those things that are received faster and more than learning.

Moral education such as a set of methods and tools to help critical thinking, moral inquiry, imagination, motivation, etc. (Osler & Starkey, 2005).

10. Conclusion

Given the inevitable confrontation with the phenomenon of globalization in every land, and at the same time preserving the national identity of youth, and given the poor performance of Iran’s education system in representing cultural heritage on a national and ethnic scale and offering national culture on a global scale, in order to properly confront globalization and identify the opportunities that this phenomenon offers to societies, we must try to recognize our strengths and weaknesses and create improvements in the educational system appropriate to the requirements of the new world. The education system should:

1- In the section of national values, address the pathology of national identity and, after necessary examinations, proceed to formulate and set the philosophy of education in accordance with strategic goals. Because the methods used in any system are derived from its educational philosophy. For this purpose, the attitude of education toward goals, curriculum, classroom and school activities must change and consolidate identity and human, religious, national value system as the axis of its educational programs. Given that the infrastructure of all cultural actions in education, especially in pre-school and the first years of elementary school, is located, it is better that the education of national values starts from these ages so that it succeeds in creating a coherent identity that does not have passive and surrendering acceptance against the phenomenon of globalization.

2- In the section of globalization and educating global citizens, i.e., educating individuals to live in the world, not to live in Iran or America, which presupposes having a common global culture, education should compare cultures and pay attention to the cultural commonalities that can be found in those cultures, meaning cultivate cultural commonalities and then place them as part of the education program. Also, the education system must equip its graduates at different academic levels with various communication and information skills and avoid focusing solely on the knowledge dimension in the teaching-learning process. For this purpose, educational systems must change their educational vision from efficiency to effectiveness. Therefore, in order to educate students for an unstable and changing world where living in it requires a high ability of flexibility, mobility, and dynamism, it is necessary for educational planners and senior educational managers to start deep educational reforms appropriate to the economic, social, cultural situation of the society by fundamentally reviewing all educational pillars from designing programs to implementation and evaluation.