CHAPTER 2

GLOBALIZATION AND CULTURAL AND

MULTICULTURAL LITERACIES

OBJECTIVES:

At the end of this chapter, you should be able to develop a

clear and practical understanding of the following:

 Globalization and its implications on both the national and

individual level.

 Cultural and multicultural literacy in the Philippines

 One’s personal level of cultural and multicultural literacy.

GLOBALIZATION

It 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. As shown

earlier, they range from economic to cultural, on both national
and individual levels.

Meyer (2000) summarizes the effects of globalization as follows:

 Economic, political, and military dependence and

interdependence 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 AND INTERDEPENDENCE

 - By attracting Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), new
technologies, employment opportunities, and money have come
into the country.
- This does not mean, however, that there have been no
negative effects of globalization. Kentor (2001) note 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 this investments are repatriated, rather
than invested in the host country, therefore inhabiting
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 labors 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 (die familiar saying “kapag maraming anak,
maraming katulong sa hanapbuhay”) leading to explosive
population growth.

POLITICAL AND MILITARY DEPENDENCE/INDEPENDENCE

- A survey conducted in late 2018 found that three in

five Filipinos believed that the United States would
intervene in behalf of the country in case of war (Viray,
2018).

EXPANDED FLOW OF EXPRESSIVE AND INSTRUMENTAL CULTURE

- Expressive culture, as the term suggests, deals with how

particular culture expresses itself in its language, music,
arts, and the like. Globalization encourages the
monetization of these cultural artifacts and their
import/export among participating cultures; the increased
consumption of which changes the consuming culture.

- 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. The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) estimates that
there were 2.3 million overseas Filipino workers (OFWs)
during the period of April to September 2017, who were
responsible for up to 205.2 billion pesos in remittances
(Philippine Statistics Authority, 2018).
- Meyer (2000), observes three reasons for this: socio-
economic migration, political expulsion, and travel/tourism.

 Socio-economic migration explains the Philippines OFW

phenomenon. Filipinos travel abroad to find better
economic opportunities for themselves and their families
for lack of sad opportunities here.
 Political explosion, on the other hand, has more to do
with trying to escape the political climate of a
particular country, there by forcing an individual to
seek asylum (an ultimately, resettlement) in another more
favorable country.
 Travel for the sake of leisure (i.e., tourism) this is
strong indicator of economic development as more and more
Filipinos are able to finance short-term travel abroad,
field by curiosity that is feed by social media and
enabled by globalization.

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 simply being a passive
(and outside) observer. The signs and symbols of a culture
include both it's formal and informal languages, it's idioms
and forms of expression, entertainment, values, customs,
roles, traditions and the like - most of which are assumed
and unstated. Thus, they are learned by being part of the
culture, rather than by any formal means.

- Of course, by its very definition, cultural literacy is

 culture specific, but is not limited to national cultures,
contrary to what many people assume. The culture of one
workplace can be very different from one another, just as
the culture of a particular school can differ widely from
another school nearby.

- There are far too many cultures for anyone person to be

literate in all of them. As more and more Filipinos travel -
both domestically and abroad - as the result of
globalization and the increased opportunities it brings, the
need to develop new cultural literacies comes to the fore.

Cultural Literacy in the 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 the
broad. Part of how the NCCA is addressing this and related
matters is true establishment of the Philippine Cultural
Education Program (PCEP), which “envisions a nation of culturally
literate and empowered Filipinos” (NCCA, 2015). Designed to make
cultural education accessible the old sectors of Philippine
society, the PCEP held national consultative meetings,
conferences, workshops, art comps, and festivals on culture -
based teaching and good governance from 2003 and 2007. As a
result of Republic Act 10066(2010), PCEP has been designated as
the body, together with the department of education (DepEd),
tasked to “formulate the cultural heritage education programs
both for local and overseas Filipinos” that are to be an integral
part of Philippine Education in all its aspect.

Cultural education – and thus cultural literacy - in the

Philippines is quiet a 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. The
point out, consider the question,” what makes something or
someone Filipino?”

De Leon (2011) coins this propensity for Filipinos to look at

their culture and themselves through western lenses as Doña
Victorina Syndrome, a kind of inferiority complex wherein
anything and everything natively Filipino is considered by the
Filipinos 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 core of national
unity. Of course, this remains to be seen.

Challenges for Cultural Literacy in the Philippines

As Applebee (1987) observes, interesting discussion on

cultural literacy give rise to come 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 and to be considered
“culturally literate” who decides which cultures are
included in 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 related to be assessed and evaluated?
How can we know someone is “culturally literate”?

As of the writing of this book, no definitive answers to

these questions exist in the literature.

MULTICULTURAL LITERACY

- As cultures begin to mix and change as a result of

globalization, conflict inevitably arise over identity,
values, and worldviews. This situation consequently needs
for a literacy that enables us to quickly and easily
identify and result such conflicts, preferably before they
even begin. This has come to be understood as multicultural
literacy.

Multicultural literacy 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 leanings

the word knowing or identifying the poly-ethnic origins of
knowledge with the express goal of fostering quality, diversity,
and social justice.

Meanwhile, in Europe, multicultural literacy comes more in

the form of intercultural communication competence (ICC), which
is defined by Dusi, Messetti, and Steinbach (2014) as a composite
of skills, abilities, attitudes, personality patterns, etc.
necessary for clear and productive communication with cultures
other than our own. Similarly, Fantini (2006) defines it as “a
complex of abilities needed to perform effectively and
appropriately when interacting with others who are linguistically
and culturally different from oneself.

We define multicultural literacy here as the knowledge and

skills necessary to ensure that any communication with a culture
different from our own is clear, productive, and respectful such
that their differences are celebrated and neither culture is
demeaned or treated as inferior.

The skills and knowledge required for one to be multi-culturally

literate:

1. Be selfless

2. Know that good and useful things can (and do) come from those
different from us.

3. Be willing to compromise

4. Accept that there are limits

ISSUES IN TEACHING AND LEARNING MULTICULTURAL LITERACY IN THE

PHILIPPINES

A number of important issues stand in the way of Philippine

educators attempting to learn multicultural literacy for
themselves and teach it in turn to others, which are different
from what can be found in western literature, particularly those
of the United States.

Conflicting Requirements for Peace

- When all is said and done, the heart of multicultural
literacy is peace among different cultures – that is
productive and none – violent interaction. It is easy to
assume that all cultures value peace to the same degree and
are therefore willing to make the same compromises in order
to attain it, but this is not necessarily true.

Nationalistic and Regionalistic Pushback

- The increasing demand for multicultural sensitivity,
inclusion, and diversity in the recent years has also given
rise to resistance from groups who believe that their
identity is being “watered-down” by the needed compromises.
-

The persistence of the problem

- On the surface, multicultural literacy might seem to just be
a matter of “good common sense” and understandably so, no
one actively desires to experience discrimination regarding
what they know and what they can and cannot do simply on the
basis of race, ethnicity, or in the case of the Philippines,
region of origin. It therefore makes perfect sense to
collectively refrain from such behavior under the assumption
that “if you don’t do it to me, I wont do it to you” And
yet, to our horror and shame, the practice persists. Worse,
we sometimes find ourselves participating in and justifying
such discriminatory behavior – if only online and not in
real life (as if anything written or posted online is not,
in fact, in real life)
- Boutte (2008) suggest that issue of discrimination in all
its forms (racial, religious, tribal, cultural, ETC) are
really issues of hatred , which she defines in an
educational setting as the lack of compassion and the lack
of respect for the rights of others , and that such a hatred
must be fought and its roots must be attacked , because
first longest hatred exist in the human mind , real peace
will be impossible (Vreeland, 2001)

The Question of Value

- Another issue in teaching and learning multicultural
literacy is better posited as a question; “Why should I
treat people of another culture with respect?
- It might seem that the answer to the questions is a simple
one: for peace: But as we have seen earlier, not everyone
values peace to the same degree. What if, for a certain
 culture, it is easier to just destroy anyone who opposes
them rather than expend the effort needed to come to a
mutual understanding?
- In other words , why should i call you other culture ,
another society , another person more than myself and my own
? If we subscribe to Dawkins (2016) concept of a selfish
gene – where on a genetic level, do more to individuals are
genetically similar to one another , the more sense it makes
to behave selflessly to ward one another and selfishly to
ward others who are different - then we can easily frame the
issue of discrimination of cultural discrimination and
injustice as one of the both genetics and survival . This
means that the injustice you experience is necessary for my
survival , and therefore it is in my best interest
(gymnastic and otherwise) that I maintain the status quo -
or reverse it, as the case maybe. Educators like Freire
(2000) have recognized and reason against such as monsters
perspective , and rightly so dash but have also admitted
that mean the oppressed to are freed from their oppression ,
they inevitably become the new oppressors.

Enhance
A majority of research on multicultural literacy stems from
the west , specifically the united states , and focuses and
teaching teachers to be more multicultural in their
pedagogies.

- Learn about other cultures . Banks (1991) posits that

the first stop the teaching multiculturalism is knowing
about cultures there are not your own . It follows that
if you , the teacher , no only your own culture , then
you will be an able to teach your students to
appreciate the culture that is different from your own.

- Familiarize yourself with how discrimination and

prejudice appear in your own culture. Boutte (2008) and
Banks (1991) agreed that teachers must be able to
identify and confront patterns of discrimination and
prejudice and their own vibes before they can teach
your students to do the same period example , when
someone you just in case he or she is from mindanao ,
what words immediately come out of your mouth in
response ? Do you express genuine acceptance , or do
they betrayed some long-held preconceptions about
people from the region ?

- As you are , so will you behave paired k2 genuine

 multicultural literacy is core – that is, what you ,
the teacher , really believe about people who are
different from you , not the kind of belief that you
can just say you possess when talking to your crush but
the kind that determines your behavior when you think
no one is watching. Simply put , if you do not truly
believe that those who are different have value equal
to your own , i will show , and your students while
detect it. It will be seen in the words use , and
expression of your face , and the change of your
behavior when you think no one can see , etc. The
converse is also true , if you do believe others have
value equal to your own , no matter their social
class , educational background , skin color , or
regional accent, it will show , and what its shown is
what students will learn.

- Model more , tell more .young students , by nature ,

will have difficulty and exercising empathy toward
those who are different from them . The ability is
there , but i will naturally lack practice. It is
therefore not enough the teachers tell them to be more
compassionate , you , the teacher , must model for them
what empathy and compassion for others look like on a
day-to-day basis.