Globalization And Curriculum: Inferring From Bernstein’S Code Theory

The U.S.A. obtains a hegemonic position through globalization. Neoliberalism, a competition-based approach, spreads as a new world value. Neoliberalism lets so many countries abandon social justice to adopt international competitiveness, but in lacking of public service and policy it harms disadvantaged people. Bowles and Gintis (1976) stated schools’ career replacement is directly related to the capitalist relations of production; namely, the reflection and protection of the capitalist dominant ruling class. Educational system is related to the social division of labor (Sadovnik, 1991) interlocking class and power manipulation. Curriculum is often a relay for certain dominant social and cultural values; this is a social class principle of selection. The research will investigate the characteristics of working class and their language codes which are based on Basil Bernstein’s sociolinguistic model. In the 1960s and 1970s, educational reformers emphasized teaching process, individualized learning, relevant and meaningful curriculum, student spirit freedom, and the equal opportunity. They stay away from oppressive, authoritarian, elitist, and agree to a more invisible pedagogic practice which implies more freedom for teachers and students. Those characteristics are quite different from the globalization strong subject classification and hold fixed standards for evaluation purposes. Under globalization, the study claims that the curriculum characteristics from 1960s to 1970s, an invisible and a weakly classified curriculum, should deeply value again not only in higher education but also in other educational settings.