Globalization and Cultural and Multicultural Literacies

GLOBALIZATION AND CULTURAL AND MULTICULTURAL LITERACIES
GLOBALIZATION is the process of interaction and integration between people, business entities,
governments, and cultures from other nations, driven by international trade and investment and supported by
information technology. (Levin institute. 2017).
THE EFFECTS OF GLOBALIZATION
The effects of globalization are multi-dimensional. They range from economic to cultural, on both
national and individual levels.
MEYER (2002) summarizes the effects of globalization as follows:
 Economic, political, and military dependence and independence between nations;
 Expanded flow of individual people among societies;
 Interdependence of expressive culture among nations; and
 Expanded flow of instrumental culture around the world.
ECONOMIC DEPENDENCE/INTERDEPENDENCE
When the term globalization entered the Philippine public mindset in the early 90’s, it was popularly
understood to be a mainly economic phenomenon, and a negative one at that. The idea that foreign-owned
businesses could come into country and freely “set-up shop”, thereby choking-out local industries was not a
welcome thought, even though it was erroneous.
While Philippine society has come to realize that this early perspective represented a shallow
understanding of globalization, the fact of the matter is that globalization has brought economic
development to our society as a whole. By attracting Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), new technologies,
employment opportunities, and money have come into the country. The phenomenon of a taxi driver owning
multiple smartphones to browse social media while stuck in traffic because of the rise of the number of
vehicles on our roads is testament to this fact.
This does not mean, however, that there have been no negative effects of globalization. Kentor
(2001) notes that foreign capital dependence increases income inequality in four ways:
1. It creates a small, highly paid class of elites to manage these investments, who create many but
usually low-pay jobs;
2. Profits from these investments are repatriated, rather than invested in the host country, therefore
inhibiting domestic capital formation;
3. Foreign capital penetration tends to concentrate land ownership among the very rich; and
4. Host countries tend to create political and economic climates favorable to foreign capital that in turn
limit domestic labor’s ability to obtain better wages.
In simple words, “the rich become richer, and the poor become poorer”
Hout (1980) observes that international dependence (another word for globalization) tends to
suppress adult wages, which in turn perpetuates the role of children as economic necessities (the familiar
saying “Kapag maraming anak, maraming katulong sa hanapbuhay”), leading to explosive population
growth.
In a chain reaction of negative effects, this explosive population growth creates a large sub-sector of
society that is insulated from economic development yet competes for resources with the rest of the
population. Coupled with the economic inequalities, resulting in policies that favor the redistribution of
income, which in turn discourages investment, which then slows economic growth.
Political and Military Dependence/Interdependence
A survey conducted in late 2018 found that three in five Filipinos believe that the United States
would intervene on behalf of the country in case of war (Viray 2018). Despite the current very
conservative stance of the US on its foreign policies, this can be taken as evidence of the Philippines’
dependence on both the political and military power of the US in order to maintain its sovereignty as a
nation-state in the Southeast Asia region. Similar things can be said of Russia and the many communist
nations throughout the world.
The point is that where there are some forms of economic dependence/interdependence, political
dependence/interdependence is not far beyond as the participating nations strive to protect their
investments and interests as one another.
EXPANTED FLOW OF EXPRESSIVE AND INSTRUMENTAL CULTURE
Expressive culture, as the term suggests, deals with how a particular culture expresses itself in its
language, music, arts, and the like.
Instrumental culture, on the other hand, refers to “common models of social order” (Meyer,2000)- that
is, models or ways of thinking about and enacting national identity, nation-state policies both domestic
and foreign, socio-economic development, human rights, education, and social progress.
EXPANDED FLOW OF PEOPLE AMONG SOCIETIES
The fact that globalization encourages the movement of people between nation-states should come as
no surprise to us.
Meyer (2000), observes the three reasons for this: socio-economic migration, political expulsion, and
travel/tourism.
Socio-economic Migration explains the Philippines’ OFW phenomenon.
Political expulsion, on the other hand, has more to do with trying to escape the political climate of a
particular country, thereby forcing an individual to seek asylum (and ultimately, resettlement) and other
more favorable country.
CULTURAL LITERACY
Cultural literacy is a term coined by Hirsch (1983), referring to the ability to understand the signs
and symbols of a given culture and being able to participate in its activities and customs as opposed to
simple being a passive (and outside) observer. The signs and symbols of a culture includes both its
formal and informal languages, its idioms and forms of expression, entertainment, values, customs,
roles, traditions, and the like-most of which are assumed unstated. Thus they are learned by being part of
the culture, rather than by any formal means.
To illustrate this, consider the following statement: “The classroom was in absolute bedlam.”
Without any sort of background, the reader is forced to guess the meaning of the word “bedlam” from its
context within the sentence. As it turns, “bedlam” refers to a scene of uproar, confusion, and chaos. The
term is British in origin, referring to a psychiatric hospital in London by the name of St. Mary Bethlehem
that was once representative of the worst excesses of insane asylums during the 14 th century and
“bedlam” is a corruption of the word “Bethlehem” in the name.
CULTURAL LITERACY IN PHILIPPINES

The National Commission for Culture and the Arts(NCCA) is the government body tasked with the
documentation, preservation, and dissemination of Philippine culture, both locally and abroad. Part of
how the NCCA is addressing this and related matters is through the establishment of the Philippine
Cultural Education Program (PCEP), which “envisions a nation of culturally literate and accessible to all
sectors of Philippine society, the PCEP held national consultative meetings, conferences, workshops, art
camps, and festivals on cultural-based teaching and good governance from 2003 to 2007. As a result of
Republic Act 1006 (2010), PCEP has been designated as the body together with Department of
Education.
Cultural Education – and thus cultural literacy – in the Philippines is quite challenge, given that
Philippine culture is a complex blend of many indigenous and colonial cultures and varies widely across
regions, and the average citizen is almost as ignorant of other Philippine cultures as foreigners are. To
point out, consider the question, “What makes something or someone ‘Filipino’?”
De Leon (2011) coins this properly for Filipinos to look at their culture and themselves through
Western lenses as the Dona Victorina Syndrome, a kind of inferiority complex wherein anything and
everything natively Filipino is considered by the Filipino themselves as being inferior, backward, and
worthless in comparison to their Western counterparts, and therefore a source of embarrassment and
unease.
For De Leon, it is excellence in the arts – via an expression that is truly Filipino – that can form the
care of national unity.
CHALLENGES FOR CULTURAL LITERACY IN THE PHILIPPINES
Applebee (1987) observes, interesting discussions on cultural literacy give rise to some very
difficult questions which are particularly important to a multicultural and multilingual nation like the
Philippines.
 What kinds of knowledge constitute cultural literacy? Is it knowing facts, names, and dates,
or is it something more experiential like being familiar with a story or a particular song?
 If culture is more “caught than taught”, should cultural literacy be one of the goals of
education? If yes, how does one teach it?
 Whose cultures must we be literate in to be considered “culturally literate”? Who decides
which cultures are included and which ones are excluded, and on what bases?
 Is cultural literacy education simply a means for the dominant culture to express its
dominance over minority cultures?
 How is cultural literacy to be assessed and evaluated? How can we know someone is
“culturally literate”?
Multicultural Literacy as a set of skills and knowledge is difficult to define because of how it changes
depending on the contexts in which it is discussed.
In America, multicultural literacy has very strong learnings towards knowing or identifying the poly-ethic
origins of knowledge with the express goal of fostering equally, diversity, and social justice.
In Europe, multicultural literacy comes more in form of intercultural communication competence (ICC).
Which is designed by Dusi, Messiti, and Steinbach (2014) as a composite of skills, abilities, attitude,
personality patterns, etc. necessary for clear and productive communication with cultures other than our
own. Fantini (2006 ) defines it as a, “complex of abilities needed to perform effectively and appropriately
when interacting with who are linguistically and culturally different from oneself.”

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GLOBALIZATION AND CULTURAL AND MULTICULTURAL LITERACIES

CULTURAL LITERACY IN PHILIPPINES

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