Journal of Teacher Education
Preparing Globally Competent Teachers:
A New Imperative for Teacher Education
Yong Zhao1
Abstract
Globalization is one of the most powerful forces that will shape the future world in which our children will live. How to
prepare our children to live successfully in this world has become a challenging question for education. This article discusses
the challenges globalization presents to education and the implications for teacher education.
Keywords
globalization, international education, teacher education, technology, global competence
Education is a future-oriented business because it aims to
prepare today’s children for the future. In this sense, teacher
education is an even more future-oriented business for it
aims to prepare teachers for future educational institutions.
Thus, discussing teacher education cannot afford to ignore
the forces that will shape education in the future, which will
prepare our children to live in an even more distant future
world.
The last part of the 20th century and the first decade of the
21st century have already seen dramatic changes brought
about by globalization. Our schools have also been strug-
gling to deal with the impact of globalization. But the impli-
cations of this powerful force have yet to be fully recognized
and realized in education and teacher education. In this arti-
cle, I discuss the challenges globalization may bring to teacher
education.
The Death of Distance:
Defining Globalization
Globalization has become a catchphrase to refer to both the
process and consequences of shrinking distances between
places on this planet (e.g., Friedman, 2005). Thanks to advances
in transportation and communication technologies as well as
massive political changes, the effectual distance, that is, the
time and cost required to get from Point A to Point B on
earth, has been dramatically reduced. For example, it took
Christopher Columbus almost three months to cross the
Atlantic about 400 years ago, whereas one can fly over the
same distance in a matter of hours today and the cost is much
lower. The first transatlantic telegraph message, “Glory to
God in the highest; on earth, peace and good will toward
men,” took over 17 hours to transmit in 1758, which, com-
pared to the previous medium, was already a historical
improvement. Today, the same message takes just seconds
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to cross the ocean. As Ben Bernanke (2006), chairman of the
U.S. Federal Reserve, observes, “By almost any economi-
cally relevant metric, distances have shrunk considerably in
recent decades.” In some respects, we can say that distance
has died or disappeared for certain human activities.
When global distances shrink, human activities are no
longer confined by geographical locations or bounded by
political entities. The result is then what we call “globaliza-
tion.” Almost half a century ago, the Canadian media theo-
rist and communication professor Marshall McLuhan (1964)
coined the phrase global village to highlight his observation
that, thanks to “electric technology, we have extended our
central nervous system itself in a global embrace, abolishing
both space and time as far as our planet is concerned” (p. 19).
Events in one part of the world could be experienced in real
time in other parts of the world—just like when people lived
in small villages. McLuhan’s insights were revolutionary yet
astonishingly correct, as attested by subsequent develop-
ments in communication and information technologies.
Today, the all-encompassing information and communica-
tion technology the Internet has penetrated more than 25%
of the world’s population (Miniwatts Marketing Group,
2010). Mobile phones, nonexistent at McLuhan’s time, are
used by more than two billion people today. Television has
now entered 90% of households in the world, with news and
other programming running 24 hours a day.
What McLuhan did not anticipate is that the technologies
that enable people to experience vicariously what happens in
1
Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA
Corresponding Author:
Yong Zhao, Michigan State University, College of Education, 115 Erickson
Hall, East Lansing, MI 48824
Email: zhaoyo@msu.edu
Zhao 423
distant places have also enabled physical movement of
goods, services, and people, with the help of new transporta-
tion technologies and political and cultural changes. The
increased flow of goods, services, money, and information
across national borders led Thomas Friedman (2005) to
declare the arrival of “the flat world,” in which more people
on the planet are now participating and experiencing eco-
nomic, cultural, and political activities on a global scale. In
2004, worldwide trade in merchandise and services contrib-
uted to 55% of the world gross domestic product (GDP).
Global flows of foreign direct investment have more than
doubled relative to GDP since 1990, reaching 28.4% of GDP
in 2004. Similarly, there have been dramatic increases in
migration and international travel. In 2005, more than 190
million people, or 3% of the world’s population, lived in a
country in which they were not born. Workers’ remittances
and compensation of employees, that is, transfers by migrant
workers and wages and salaries earned by nonresident work-
ers, reached $227 trillion in the received category in 2004. In
the same year, nearly 800 million tourists traveled to another
country (World Bank, 2006).
The “global village” and “flat world” are only two of the
many metaphors used to describe globalization. But they cap-
ture the essence of this process that has profoundly changed
how we live, work, and entertain: “Our lives are becoming
increasingly intertwined with those of distant people and
places around the world—economically, politically, and cul-
turally. These links are not always new, but they are more
pervasive than ever before” (Legrain, 2002, p. 4). These
links are the result and forces of the defining characteristic of
globalization—the increasing free movement of people,
goods and services, information, and money across national
borders and physical distances.
Challenges to Education
Globalization has already transformed how we live, work,
and entertain, affected our views of relationships, and made
salient the people who live thousands of miles away and
were “out of sight and out of mind.” As a social institution,
education has been mostly a local entity, funded with local or
national taxes, serving the purpose of the local community or
the nation, preparing workers for the local economy, and
passing on local values. The idea of a local community has
already become something of the past. We all live in a glob-
ally interconnected and interdependent community today.
We can be certain that our children will live in an even more
globalized world. Their lives will be even more affected by
others who live in distant lands, belong to different local
communities, and believe in different gods or in no god at
all. Education, the traditionally local social institution, thus
faces a number of significant challenges to prepare our chil-
dren to live in the global society.
Global Competitiveness
The first challenge is what we can do to help our children
secure jobs that will provide for them and their families. The
death of distance has enabled businesses to consider their
workforce globally. That is, when the job market is global,
employers can theoretically find the needed talents from
anywhere on the globe by either moving their businesses
where the talents are found and outsourcing to operations
that have the talents or directly moving the talents to wher-
ever they need them.
In a strictly economic sense, businesses use two criteria to
decide whom to employ, costs and quality, all other things
being equal. To maximize profit, all businesses would like to
pay as little as possible for their workforce provided that the
workforce has adequate knowledge and skills for the tasks.
Thus, the first thing that matters on the global job market is
cost or salaries and benefits from the employees’ perspec-
tive. Cheap labor in developing countries is responsible for
many of the job losses and factory closures in developed
countries. The integration of China, India, and other devel-
oping countries into the world economy has injected billions
of workers who cost much less than those in developed
countries for low-level, low-skill, or no-skill positions and
thus made it possible for businesses to send jobs to these
countries. But China, India, and other countries not only
have cheap labor for low-skilled jobs but also have millions
of engineers, computer programmers, and other professionals
who can competently fill positions that require more sophis-
ticated knowledge and skills, and cost less. That’s why we
have also seen jobs in the high-tech industry such as soft-
ware programming lost to China and India.
Moreover, China, India, and other developing countries
have been working hard at developing their education sys-
tems. And as their economic conditions continue to imp­rove,
so does the quality of their education. This indeed has caused
concerns in the developed countries, which certainly do not
have the advantage of price compared to the developing coun-
tries. Such concerns are best exemplified by Friedman (2005),
author of the New York Times best-seller The World Is Flat,
who tells his daughters, “People in India and China are starv-
ing for your job” (Pink, 2005b, p. 2), and President Obama
said in his major education speech as president, “In a 21st cen-
tury world where jobs can be shipped wherever there’s an
internet connection; where a child born in Dallas is competing
with children in Delhi” (Obama, 2009).
These concerns pose a challenging question to education
systems in developed countries. The question is what the New
Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce, a
group of influential business, education, and political leaders
organized by the U.S.-based National Center on Education
and the Economy, asked in its 2007 report, “Tough Choices or
Tough Times”:
424 Journal of Teacher Education 61(5)
Today, Indian engineers make $7,500 a year against
$45,000 for an American engineer with the same quali-
fications. If we succeed in matching the very high levels
of mastery of mathematics and science of these Indian
engineers—an enormous challenge for this country—
why would the world’s employers pay us more than
they have to pay the Indians to do their work? (p. 5)
Schools in the developed nations must answer this challenge
by reexamining their curriculum and pedagogy to equip their
students with the skills, knowledge, and abilities that will
justify the higher cost to employers.
International Testing and the Globalization
of Educational Standards and Practices
The second challenge schools must face is the consequences
of the rapidly spreading phenomenon of international test-
ing programs. The heightened sense of global competitive-
ness has directly led to the growth in using international
comparative studies to drive education reforms within nations
and calling for adopting internationally benchmarked cur-
riculum standards, borrowing educational practices from
other nations, and emulating educational policies from
internationally top-performing countries (U.S. Department
of Education, 2009).
Two of the better known international assessment programs
are Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study
(TIMSS) and Programme for International Student Assess-
ment (PISA). First conducted in 1995, TIMSS (formerly
short for Third International Mathematics and Science Study)
assesses fourth and eighth grade student achievement in math
and science every four years (TIMSS, 2009). Although
TIMSS’s goal is to “improve the teaching of math and sci-
ence,” PISA has a much bolder claim:
Are students well prepared for future challenges? Can
they analyse, reason and communicate effectively? Do
they have the capacity to continue learning throughout
life? The OECD Programme for International Student
Assessment (PISA) answers these questions and more,
through its surveys of 15-year-olds in the principal
industrialised countries. Every three years, it assesses
how far students near the end of compulsory education
have acquired some of the knowledge and skills essen-
tial for full participation in society. (Organisation for
Economic Co-operation and Development, 2010)
Results of both programs have been widely used to judge a
nation’s quality of education and its future citizens’ ability
to compete in the global market. A recent study commissioned
by PISA tries to make an explicit and direct link between
PISA scores and national economic performance.
This report uses recent economic modelling to relate
cognitive skills—as measured by PISA and other
international instruments—to economic growth. The
relationship indicates that relatively small improve-
ments in the skills of a nation’s labour force can have
very large impacts on future wellbeing. Moreover, the
gains, put in terms of current GDP, far outstrip the value
of the short-run business-cycle management. (PISA,
2010, p. 3)
National leaders and the media often pay close attention
to the performance of their students on these international
comparative tests. For example, the relatively poor performances
of U.S. students on TIMSS and PISA have been repeatedly
used by political and business leaders to justify drastic reform
actions in America. The PISA results are used extensively
in a report titled “Benchmarking for Success: Ensuring U.S.
Students Receive a World-Class Education,” jointly published
by the National Governors Association (NGA), the Council
of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), and Achieve Inc.
(NGA, CCSSO, & Achieve, 2008). The report recommends
five actions to be taken by states to build “globally competitive
education systems”:
Action 1: Upgrade state standards by adopting a com-
mon core of internationally benchmarked standards in
math and language arts for grades K-12 to ensure that
students are equipped with the necessary knowledge
and skills to be globally competitive.
Action 2: Leverage states’ collective influence to
ensure that textbooks, digital media, curricula, and
assessments are aligned to internationally benchmarked
standards and draw on lessons from high-performing
nations and states.
Action 3: Revise state policies for recruiting, pre-
paring, developing, and supporting teachers and school
leaders to reflect the human capital practices of top-
performing nations and states around the world.
Action 4: Hold schools and systems accountable
through monitoring, interventions, and support to
ensure consistently high performance, drawing upon
international best practices.
Action 5: Measure state-level education perfor-
mance globally by examining student achievement and
attainment in an international context to ensure that, over
time, students are receiving the education they need to
compete in the 21st century economy. (NGA et al.,
2008, p. 6)
The U.S. Department of Education has decided to put these
suggestions into action. For example, to be eligible for the
$4.3 billion Race to the Top Funds, the largest education
grant program in the U.S. history, states must agree to adopt
Zhao 425
internationally benchmarked common standards (U.S. Dep­
artment of Education, 2009).
Globally, interests in international comparative studies have
grown steadily as well. When TIMSS was first conducted in
1995, some 40 countries participated. In TIMSS 2007, 50
countries participated, and about 60 countries are expected to
participate in the next round in 2011. The increase in the num-
ber of countries participating in PISA is as impressive. In the
first round in 2000, 43 countries participated; nine years later,
a total of 66 countries participated in the 2009 PISA.
Given the growing interest in other countries’ educational
policy and practices as well as the performance of students in
these international tests, schools face increasing pressure to
be judged on a global stage and to become more like the top
performers. But a globally homogenous curriculum and ped-
agogy may not be the right answer for every school to prepar-
ing globally competitive citizens. A more productive app­roach
is to capitalize on one’s strengths and develop unique and
diverse talents. In addition, not all educators agree that per-
formance on international tests is necessarily a good measure
of education quality, let alone students’ future capacity to
succeed in the world (Zhao, 2009a). Regardless, schools are
challenged to face the reality of international tests and the
trend of homogenization of educational practices.
Migration and the Changing
Student Population
The third challenge is the drastic increase in migration because
of globalization, and migration brings children from differ-
ent countries to local schools. Although this is not a new
phenomenon, the scale in the new millennium is larger, the
destinations are no longer confined to a few locales, and the
countries of origin are more diverse. In the United States,
20% of children ages 5 to 17 have a foreign-born parent
(Capps et al., 2005). In the United Kingdom, about 9% of the
student population consists of immigrants who need addi-
tional English instruction (McEachron & Bhatti, 2005). In
the United Arabic Emirates, more than 80% of the population
consists of expatriates (Habboush, 2010). Even countries
that traditionally were not destinations of migration have
begun to see the arrival of children from other countries
because of their parents’ movement. Many schools and com-
munities are not adequately prepared to teach these migrant
students and must face this challenging reality (Garcia, Arias,
Murri, & Serna, 2010).
Global Competence
The fourth challenge is what we can do to help our children
live, work, and interact with people from different cultures and
countries (Gardner, 2004; Reimers, 2008). One consequence
of globalization is increased intensity and frequency of cross-
cultural communications. As businesses become global and
multinational, so do their workforces. Today, communica-
tions within a company often occur across many countries
and cultures on a daily basis. External communications with
customers, suppliers, government agencies, and other regu-
latory entities are similarly international. Even small busi-
ness owners need talents that can help them navigate the
cultural and linguistic differences when they enter the global
economy. In addition, as increasing numbers of people move
across national borders, communities are becoming increas-
ingly diverse culturally and racially. Communities need to
provide services that are culturally sensitive and linguisti-
cally competent to new immigrants, to attract international
investments and tourists, and to get on the global stage.
Therefore, the ability to interact effectively with people who
speak different languages, believe in different religions, and
hold different values has become essential for all workers
(Committee for Economic Development [CED], 2006). That
is, what used to be required of a small group of individuals—
diplomats, translators, cross-cultural communication con-
sultants, or international tour guides—has become necessary
for all professions.
We call the set of skills and knowledge “global compe-
tence.” An essential ingredient of global competence is for-
eign language proficiency and a deep understanding of other
cultures. This represents a tremendous challenge to many
schools. American schools are notorious for not preparing
students to cultivate such knowledge and skills. According
to a report released by CED, a Washington, D.C.-based non-
profit organization, in February 2006, “Many American stu-
dents lack sufficient knowledge about other world regions,
languages, and cultures, and as a result are likely to be unpre-
pared to compete and lead in a global work environment”
(CED, 2006, p. 14). Most American schools do not offer for-
eign languages until high school. Although foreign language
teaching starting from high school is already too little too
late, not all high school students are required to take a for-
eign language, especially a non-Western language.
Global Citizenship
The fifth challenge for education is what is needed to help
our children adopt a global view in their thinking and develop
a sense of global citizenship. As economic globalization
sweeps contemporary society, it brings both a positive and
negative impact to different societies and different sectors of
a given society. Although it may help spread democracy and
lift people out of poverty, globalization also has the potential
to lead to more cultural clashes and conflicts, destroy local
cultures, breed hostility, create new pockets of poverty, and
ruin the environment. Furthermore, what happens in distant
places affects communities worldwide. Terrorism, environ-
mental destruction, disease, and political unrest have all
acquired a global nature. To ensure a better society for all, in
fact to ensure the very survival and continuity of human
426 Journal of Teacher Education 61(5)
civilization, requires us to prepare our students to become
global citizens (Zhao, 2007, 2009b).
As citizens of the globe, they need to be aware of the global
nature of societal issues, to care about people in distant places,
to understand the nature of global economic integration, to
appreciate the interconnectedness and interdependence of
peoples, to respect and protect cultural diversity, to fight for
social justice for all, and to protect planet earth—home for all
human beings. This is a very difficult task for American
schools. No Child Left Behind has already squeezed out any
room for subjects other than what is being tested. The fright-
ening descriptions of job losses because of offshoring, trade
deficits, foreign terrorists, the rise of the developing countries,
and how children in other countries will “eat the lunch” of
American children add to the challenge for educators to con-
vince a very Ameri-centric public that helping our children
develop a sense of global citizenship is actually a good thing.
Summary
In summary, globalization brings many challenges to schools,
from delivering an education that will help their students
succeed in the globalized world to meeting the needs of an
increasingly diverse student population. To meet these chal-
lenges, schools need teachers who understand the implica-
tions of globalization, are able to effectively work with the
increasingly culturally and linguistically diverse student
population, and deliver a globally oriented curriculum. In the
following section, we discuss the knowledge, skills, perspec-
tives, and attitudes needed for teachers to meet the challenges
of globalization.
Teachers in the Age of Globalization
A fruitful discussion about what is needed to teach effec-
tively in the age of globalization can begin with the explora-
tion of what teachers need to do to deliver education in the
context of globalization. Here I return to the five challenges
of globalization to schools and discuss for each challenge
what types of actions are required of teachers and then what
knowledge, skills, attitudes, and perspectives are needed to
support such actions.
Preparing Globally Competitive Citizens
There is no doubt that teachers are primarily responsible for
helping their students learn what is needed to succeed in the
global economy. The problem, however, is that this “what”
is not well defined and currently hotly debated. At present,
policy makers in the United States seem to believe what is
tested by standardized testing, and that is often math, sci-
ence, and language arts, represents the “what.” Thus, recent
and current reforms have been focusing on curriculum stan-
dardization, high-stakes testing, and an emphasis on science,
technology, engineering, and math (STEM; NGA Center
for Best Practices & CCSSO, 2009; NGA et al., 2008; U.S.
Department of Education, 2009). As a result, teachers are
held accountable for making sure that their students perform
well on standardized tests.
However, this belief has been seriously challenged by
others who believe what is needed for Americans to be glob-
ally competitive is something different: creativity, diversity of
talents, critical-thinking skills, entrepreneurship, right-brain-
directed skills, global competences, and a host of other abili-
ties and knowledge not included in the current curriculum
and testing (Pink, 2005a; Trilling & Fadel, 2009; Wagner,
2008; Zhao, 2009a). In other words, American education
needs to cultivate talents and skills that cannot be done
cheaper overseas (Pink, 2005a). To do so requires American
education to capitalize on its traditional strengths in local
autonomy, flexibility, and an emphasis on educating all chil-
dren instead of moving toward more standards, narrowing the
curriculum, and reducing the definition of education to stan-
dardized test scores (Zhao, 2009a).
This debate puts teachers in a tough position and requires
them to make sound, professional judgments. To make such
judgments, teachers need to have a broad understanding of
globalization and its impact, education practices and systems
in other countries, and global economic integration and inter-
dependence. It also requires teachers to have the ability to
interpret the realities of globalization on behalf of their stu-
dents. As well, should they decide that the government poli-
cies and mandates are in fact detrimental to the education of
their students, teachers should have the courage and ability
to speak up and defend their students’ future.
Working With International Testing and
Globalization of Educational Practices
It seems likely that teachers will be in the shadow of interna-
tional testing for a while. International testing affects teach-
ers’ work on two levels. First, the results of international tests
are often used by the public and politicians to judge the over-
all quality of public education in the United States, although
only a small sample of schools participate in these tests.
Such judgment affects public perception of schools and
teachers and is also used to justify the importation of so-
called internationally benchmarked standards. The result is
that teachers will be further constrained to teach to the stan-
dards. Second, the results of international tests identify “top-
performing” education systems, such as the Singaporean and
Finnish. These systems are then considered models, and their
practices are expected to be copied by teachers in the United
States.
Although there is nothing wrong with learning from oth-
ers, international testing can lead (and to some extent has led)
to global homogenization of curriculum, abandonment of local
identities and traditions, disregarding of local needs, and
Zhao 427
disrespect for student differences. Such consequences are
precisely the opposite of what is needed in the age of global-
ization: customization, personalization, and diversity of tal-
ents (Zhao, 2009a).
Teachers, thus, need to be aware of the nature of interna-
tional testing, develop the ability to compare and analyze differ-
ent educational policies and practices, and have an open mind
toward different practices while thoughtfully reflecting on their
own. As well, teachers should have the ability and knowledge to
interpret international test scores and to understand the implica-
tions of practices from other education systems.
Working With an Increasingly
Diverse Student Population
There is no question that the nation’s student population has
become more diverse, and as globalization continues, one
can only expect the trend to continue. Moreover, the origins
of immigrant children have also become more diverse (Capps
et al., 2005); however, it is a known fact that the demograph-
ics of American teachers do not match those of the changing
student population with the majority of teachers being White
and an increasing number of them coming from a higher
socioeconomic background (Zumwalt & Craig, 2005). That
is, they do not necessarily share a common cultural back-
ground or similar life experiences with their students. In
addition, many immigrant children have limited English pro-
ficiency and struggle to adapt to a new culture. Most teachers
are monolingual, with limited experiences learning a foreign
language or experiencing a foreign culture.
Thus, how to teach immigrant children presents a tremen-
dous challenge to teachers (Garcia et al., 2010; Goodwin,
2002, 2010). To teach immigrant children effectively, we
need “responsive teachers” (Garcia et al., 2010). Responsive
teachers should have knowledge of what their students bring
to school, the ability and skills to interact with students with
limited English proficiency, and an understanding of the impact
of their students’ home and community culture (Garcia et al.,
2010). Teachers also need to be sensitive to cultural and lin-
guistic differences, experiences of migrating, and students’
life experiences and living conditions. Garcia and colleagues
(2010) summarize the knowledge and abilities responsive
teachers should have with regard to English learners in three
categories: the learner, the curriculum, and understanding
teaching: “Students’ funds of knowledge, families, commu-
nities, and the role of home culture impacting school out-
comes; connections between language, culture, and identity;
Sociocultural factors situated in communities, classrooms,
and schools; Culturally responsive classrooms, instruction,
and cultural sensitivity” (p. 137).
Teaching Global Competence
Global competence is the knowledge and skills needed to func-
tion successfully in the globalized world. More specifically, it
includes the ability to speak, understand, and think in a foreign
language, knowledge of the global system and world history,
geography, and other global issues such as health and econom-
ics, and knowledge of other cultures (Gardner, 2004; Reimers,
2009; Zhao, 2009a). Although some of these knowledges
and abilities can be taught in existing courses, others may
require adding new courses and educational activities. Thus,
to cultivate global competence, schools will need teachers
who are themselves globally competent. A globally compe-
tent teacher, according to a report published by the Longview
Foundation (2008), should have the following:
• Knowledge of the international dimensions of their
subject matter and a range of global issues,
• Pedagogical skills to teach their students to analyze
primary sources from around the world, appreciate
multiple points of view, and recognize stereotyping,
• A commitment to assisting students to become
responsible citizens both of the world and of their
own communities. (p. 7)
In addition, we will need specialized teachers in foreign
languages, world history, geography, arts, culture, economics,
and other related subjects.
Developing Global Citizenship
Global citizenship is closely related to global competence
and often considered a part of global competence. I list it as
a separate topic because it deserves special attention. Global
citizenship means assuming agency and responsibilities in
global affairs. It is also means understanding global interde-
pendence, appreciating cultural and social differences, and
committing to justice for all human beings. Specifically,
Noddings (2005) suggests that global citizens should have
deep concern about economic justice—a commitment to the
elimination of poverty, protecting the earth (the common
home to all), social and cultural diversity, and world peace.
At the heart of global citizenship is the perspective that
regardless of our physical location at the moment, we are part
of the globe—affecting and being affected by what happens
on and to the globe. This means “hybrid or blended identi-
ties” (Gardner, 2004)—being a citizen of multiple communi-
ties, local, national, and global.
Cultivating global citizenship requires teachers to have a
global perspective, model cultural sensitivity, model global
citizenship, and engage students in educational activities
aimed at developing global citizenship. Teachers should be
able to explain to students how people in different parts of
the world are interdependent, why caring about others is ben-
eficial to ourselves, and what we can do to ensure a peaceful
and sustainable world for all human beings. Furthermore,
teachers should have the knowledge and ability to guide stu-
dents to consider global problems such as international ter-
rorism, human conflicts, trade disputes, environmental issues,
428 Journal of Teacher Education 61(5)
and health issues from multiple perspectives. Finally, it is
important for teachers to understand and pass on the under-
standing to students that in the globalized world, physical
locations no longer define a person’s self-interest or protect
his or her well-being, because we are all interconnected and
where we live can change quite quickly.
In short, the challenges globalization presents to schools
are challenges to teachers. In the age of globalization, teachers
are expected to prepare students to be successful not only
locally but also globally. They are affected by education in
other nations. They face an increasingly diverse student popu-
lation in their classrooms. They need to become globally com-
petent and global citizens. In addition, their own profession is
affected by international migration as well as a growing num-
ber of schools recruiting teachers from other nations (Ameri-
can Federation of Teachers, 2009), and a growing number of
teaching jobs becoming available in foreign countries.
Preparing Teachers for the
Age of Globalization
To prepare teachers to teach in the context of globalization
is the job of teacher education programs, which, like the
schools they serve, have been traditionally oriented to their
local contexts. “The culture of teacher education is local and
therefore has advanced policies that serve the neighborhood
schools but not the needs of future citizens of today’s global-
ized world” (Longview Foundation, 2008, p. 6), and conse-
quently, “teacher training programs are often among the least
internationalized programs on American college and univer-
sity campuses” (Longview Foundation, 2008, p. 5). In addi-
tion, teacher education already faces a multitude of different
pressures (Cochran-Smith & Zeichner, 2005).
To change this culture is not easy. Any cultural change
takes determination, time, and effort. The current political
environment of education and teacher education makes the
change even more difficult. The increased attention on stan-
dardized curriculum and testing in schools not only has nar-
rowed what schools teach (McMurrer, 2007, 2008) but also
makes it difficult for teacher education programs to expand
their curricula to include courses and experiences needed to
prepare globally competent teachers. The test-driven account-
ability movement further pushes teachers and teacher educa-
tion programs to focus on scores on a few standardized tests
for both their students and future teacher candidates, which
again makes adding international content an unfavorable
suggestion. The tendency to reduce teachers to bureaucrats
or robots to be subordinated to “externally mandated and
closely monitored curricula, scripted and timed instruction,
merit pay tethered to achievement scores, and public humili-
ation when students fail to meet the formula for expected
progress” (Grumet, 2010, p. 66) forces teacher education
programs to pay attention to techniques, skills, standards, and
subject matter content, further limiting what future teachers
can learn. Moreover, the almost exclusive emphasis on the
need for teachers in STEM lures teacher education programs
to go after the precious dollars put up by the government
while neglecting other subject matters such as foreign lan-
guages and international studies.
But the imperative to change is clear and immediate. The
need for all teachers to be well prepared to teach culturally
and linguistically diverse students has been well docu-
mented (Garcia et al., 2010); so has the need for globally
competent teachers (Longview Foundation, 2008). The
number of schools that wish to offer more internationally
themed courses in res­ponse to public demand is on the rise
(CCSSO & Asia Society, 2008). The shortage of foreign
language teachers, especially the traditionally less com-
monly taught languages such as Mandarin Chinese and Ara-
bic, is growing (Asia Society, 2008).
A few visionary teacher education programs have already
embarked on the journey to prepare teachers for the global
age. In 2008, the Longview Foundation convened a group of
education deans, teacher educators, teachers, and global edu-
cators to address this question. The report that resulted from
the meeting, “Teacher Preparation for the Global Age: The
Imperative for Change,” gathers the strategies, programs,
and practices from teacher education programs that have
begun the transformation. Although the activities in which
these pioneers have engaged provide excellent examples, we
need to have a much more comprehensive, thoughtful, and
deliberate plan to prepare our future citizens to successfully
live in a world that will become only more globalized in the
future. In the following paragraphs, I outline some essential
elements of such a plan.
Policy Advocacy
The current education policies and priorities are major obsta-
cles to preparing globally competent students and teachers.
Thus, the first element of a comprehensive plan for global
education is to advocate policy changes. For the sake of our
children, we need to emphasize the importance of global
education at the national, state, and local levels.
Cultural Reorientation
The second thing the teacher education profession should do
is to shift its thinking from serving the local community to
the global. We need this shift to create a culture that immerses
future teachers in educational experiences that expand their
horizons, change their perspectives, and cultivate a positive
disposition toward the world. This shift is needed also
because we are preparing teachers to work possibly in any
part of the world, we may serve children from any part of the
world, and we have teacher candidates from other nations. In
addition, our research is consumed by teacher professionals
from all over the world. Thus, as both practitioners and res­
earchers, we need to situate our work in the global context
and be mindful of its global nature.
Zhao 429
Articulating Expectations
The third element of the plan should be a set of explicit and
well-articulated expectations for all teacher candidates to
become globally competent. Such expectations can serve as
a guiding framework for a coherent and systematic experi-
ence we can offer future teachers. More importantly, they
can serve as goals for future teachers. The Longview Foun-
dation (2008) report provides a list of expectations that can
serve as a good starting point.
Program Realignment
The fourth element of the plan is to realign our programs to
the needs of education in the age of globalization. Although the
existing programs may already be overloaded with all man-
dated courses and experiences, we must think creatively
about how to infuse a global element in all experiences we
offer our future teachers, for example, internships abroad,
service learning in the English learning community or a for-
eign country (Garcia et al., 2010), and utilizing international
graduate students as teaching assistants. A global element can
also be integrated in existing courses. In methods courses,
for example, international testing and educational practices
from other countries can be included.
There is another level of program realignment: the prepa-
ration of specialized educators for global education. Teacher
education programs should expand their scope of prepara-
tion. Foreign language teachers, especially those in less com-
monly taught languages, are in demand. There are other
areas that will see a rise in demand as well. For example, a
growing number of schools have begun to offer international
education programs in the forms of student exchange, online
international conferences and collaborations, study abroad
programs, and courses focusing on global issues. It is fore-
seeable that many schools will create positions for those with
expertise and preparation in this area. Coordinating and
teaching in these programs require specialized training, which
is currently unavailable. Thus, teacher education institutions
should anticipate, even proactively create, the need and begin
developing such programs.
Comprehensive and Coherent Experiences
The plan should include a comprehensive and coherent curric-
ulum that maps out the courses, experiences, and activities
aimed at preparing globally competent teachers. This curricu-
lum should cover all the years of the future teachers’ university
experiences. Teacher education programs need to work with
other units across the campus to devise such a curriculum.
Global Education Partnerships
Teacher education programs do not stand alone and cannot
meet the challenge alone. Thus, a final element of the plan is
to develop partnerships. Three types of partnerships are
needed to deliver a comprehensive and coherent global
education program: university-wide partnerships, P-12 schools
and community partnerships, and international partnerships.
Very often on the same campus exist international studies
centers, foreign language departments, study abroad offices,
and disciplinary departments that have been engaged in
global issues; colleges of education can and should work
with them to identify courses and experiences related to the
development of global understanding and make these
courses part of future teachers’ learning plans. Teacher
education programs can also benefit a great deal by col-
laborating with schools and communities that have a high
concentration of immigrant children and/or a strong inter-
est in global education. These schools and communities can
serve as sites for student teaching, service learning, and
observation. Developing partnerships with teacher educa-
tion institutions in other countries is also of tremendous
value not only for future teachers but also for developing
global competence in the faculty.
Conclusion
Globalization has already affected our economic, social, and
cultural life significantly. The impact of globalization is only
going to deepen and the consequences will be more broadly
felt. For our children to live successfully and peacefully in
this globalized world, we need to help them develop the
appropriate skills, knowledge, attitudes, and perspectives.
This requires a new generation of teachers who are able to
act as global citizens, understand the global system, and
deliver a globally oriented education. To prepare this new
generation of teachers, we need a teacher education system
that is globally oriented.
In the age of globalization, educational institutions will
continue to be operated as local entities; however, they will
need to consider themselves as global enterprises because
their products (students) will need to function well in the
globalized world in terms of competition for opportunities
and collaboration with individuals from different cultures.
Thus, schools need to adopt a global perspective in deciding
what they should offer their students and how they can take
advantage of global resources to provide high-quality educa-
tion. This does not mean that schools should abandon their
traditions. Quite the contrary, globalization demands schools
to be different and unique so they can prepare students who
will be able to discover and create their own niche. The term
glocalization, which combines globalization and localiza-
tion, suggests an excellent framework for the kind of educa-
tion we need in the 21st century: local but with a global
perspective.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interests with respect
to the authorship and/or publication of this article.
430 Journal of Teacher Education 61(5)
Financial Disclosure/Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research and/or
authorship of this article.
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About the Author
Yong Zhao is a university distinguished professor at Michigan
State University. His research interests include globalization and
education, education reform, educational technology, and language
education. His most recent book is Catching Up or Leading the
Way: American Education in the Age of Globalization (2009).