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GCWORLD Coursebook Draft - 1
GCWORLD Coursebook Draft - 1
Carmelita B. Caramto
Buddy M. Castillo
Janice P. Dominguez
Ian S. Torres
Learning Units
Prelims
Week 1 Introduction to Contemporary World
a. Course book: Content, teaching model (PBL), assessment
b. Understanding Globalization
Week 2 The Global Economy
Week 3 Global Politics and Contemporary Global Governance
Week 4 Global Divides: Global North and Global South
Week 5 Review
Week 6 Preliminary exams
Midterms
Week 7 Asian Regionalism
Week 8 The Globalization of Religion
Week 9 Media and Globalization
Week 10 The Global City
Week 11 Review
Week 12 Midterm exams
Finals
Week 13 Global Demography
Week 14 Global Migration
Week 15 Global Sustainable Development
Week 16 Global Citizenship
Week 17 Review
Week 18 Final exams
Learning objectives
At the end of the course, students should be able to:
extricate different interpretations of and approaches to globalization;
describe the emergence of global economic, political, social, and cultural systems;
explore the various contemporary drivers of globalization;
recognize the issues confronting the nation state;
evaluate the effects of globalization on different social units and their responses;
investigate contemporary news events in the context of globalization;
examine global issues in relation to Filipinos and the Philippines;
write a research paper with proper citations on a topic related to globalization;
articulate personal positions on various global issues; and
identify the ethical implications of global citizenship.
Content
The course begins with a review on the contending conceptualizations of globalization. It
presents the two major drivers of globalization: economics and politics, and how these two
forces impact people and countries today. Next, the course introduces students how
globalization reconfigures groupings and regionalism, with specific focus on pertinent
elements that characterize the Global North and Global South divisions. Likewise, it presents
the significant realities and angles of Asian Regionalism that unquestionably affect the
Philippines. Also, the course examines the ways in which globalization structures and
processes in everyday life affect countless forms of cultural life. It concentrates on how
globalization affects religious practices and beliefs, and at the same time, touches on how
various media propel different patterns of global integration. At the last part of the course,
students are required to discuss in an academic research the impacts of globalization on human
populations and the environment, specifically the interlinks among population, migration and
environmental sustainability.
2. Preparing for tutorials: learning goals and assignment – While the common topics
discussed in each week are set by the course plan and the readings, students themselves
have to determine learning goals linked to these topics. To do this, it is required that
the 12 lessons of this course be distributed to 12 chairing teams early on so students
have adequate time to prepare their learning goals. The initial points for the discussion
in class are the descriptions and reading extracts found in the introductions of each
learning unit, possibly explained further by the instructor/tutor. Lesson starts off with
students specifying 3 to 5 learning goals which will help them prepare for their
presentation, and particularly to organize and guide their discussion in class. Hence,
students should remember these learning goals when reading and preparing for their
group presentation. At a minimum, tutorial sessions must include:
a PowerPoint Presentation where the learning goals, content, interactive
techniques are well-defined; and
a printed outline of the assigned core literature (see course requirements on
succeeding pages).
4. The role of the instructor/tutor – Adhering to the PBL philosophy, the role of the
instructor/tutor is that of a moderator/coach, not a lecturer. Thus, the responsibility in
tutorial meetings is categorically controlled and directed by the students themselves.
However, the instructor/tutor may intervene in case problems arise such as unclear
discussions, ambiguous or lopsided arguments, and vague texts. Also the
instructor/tutor should provide significant feedback, and make sure that the basic
pedagogic design of the course is well-carried out.
Course Requirements
To pass this course, 80% attendance is required (see SLU Student Handbook, 2015 edition,
pp. 14-15). Students’ grades in prelims and midterms will be based on:
In the computation of the Tentative Final Grade (TFG) which comprises 40% of the Final
Grade (FG) of the course, students’ grade will be based on:
A. Group task
1. Hard and soft copies of PowerPoint presentation of the assigned lesson (15%)
(Main sections: 1st slide – title and group members
2nd slide – learning goals
3rd+ slides – content (+activities)
Last slide: references
2. Extensive printed outline of assigned core literature (10%)
This is the main outline of the assigned core literature (not similar with the PowerPoint
Presentation). At a minimum, the outline must include key words, content outline, and
a 25-point assessment.
Since some chairing teams will be presenting their topics during tutorials ahead of the other
teams, the final copies of the PowerPoint Presentation and core literature outline are collected
during the final grading. The same rule applies to chairing groups presenting for the final
tutorials. As topics/lessons are given out at the start of the academic semester, it is expected
that they will have adequate time preparing for these final requirements.
The first week of the course introduces the concepts of globalization that will be analyzed in
greater depth later in the course. In this first lecture, your instructor/tutor will discuss three
texts that critically present definitions and concepts of globalization. The discussion will focus
on how various conceptualization, periodization, and localization of globalization can change
our perspective in the process. Is globalization a contemporary phenomenon, or is it relevant to
go further back in time for better understanding of the phenomenon? Should we focus sources
or origins in the Western world only, or is there also a certain role for other parts of the world
to play? Is globalization an irreversible and inevitable condition? Jan Nederveen Pieterse and
Jan Aart Scholte offer two opposing views to these questions. On the other hand, Manfred
Steger suggests another perspective of conceptualizing globalization.
The aim of this lecture is to point out to the students the underlying principles of the
competing definitions and conceptualization of globalization. At the end of the lecture, the
students should be able come up with their own working definition of globalization.
Concepts to Master
Introductory Literature
Nederveen Pieterse, J. (2012). Periodizing Globalization: Histories of Globalization, New
Global Studies, 6(2), 1-25. Online at
http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jan_Nederveen_Pieterse/publication/
270899664_Periodizing_GlobalizationHistories_of_Globalization/links/54e
3a0c80cf282dbed6cca0d.pdf.
Scholte, J.J. (2008). Defining Globalisation. The World Economy. 31(11), pp. 1471-1502
[E-journal]
Steger, Manfred B. “Ideologies of Globalization.” 2005. Journal of Political Ideologies,
10 (1):11-30
III. Broad view and a long view of social science (Norbert Elias, 1994)
A. Several features that are associated with contemporary globalization existed also in
earlier eras, which gives us a finer understanding of what is distinctive for contemporary
times.
B. The long view breaks the spell of Eurocentrism, which is essentially the nineteenth-
century perspective when the West was triumphant.
C. The long view enables us to understand that the contemporary rise of Asia is a
comeback, a resurgence, which gives us a clearer perspective on ongoing trends and
implies an account of globalization that is more relevant in global contexts.
D. The long view syncs with the broad definition of globalization as growing connectivity
over time, the growing density in connections between distant locations.
E. It breaks with representations of the past as immobile and segmented, which is refuted
by research on migrations (Hoerder 2002), travel, technology (McNeill 1982) and the
movement of knowledge and religion.
F. The long view embeds globalization in evolutionary time: ecological adaptability and
ability to inhabit all of planetary space.
GLOBAL CONNECTIONS: A COURSE BOOK IN CONTEMPORARY WORLD 13
G. Disadvantage of the long view: Globalization becomes too general, too all-encompassing
a framework.
V. Oriental Globalization
1. We have multiple phases of oriental globalization— Eurasian globalization and east to
west movements in the early silk roads; Middle East globalization west to east, with
caravan and maritime trade moving towards Asia; and Asian globalization, east to west
from the Tang period onward
2. Hobson (2012) distinguishes four historical phases of oriental globalization:
1. “Proto-globalization (from 500 to 145) - the extensity, intensity, velocity, and
impact of Afro Eurasian interactions. Orientalization was dominant in the sense
that the “proto-global network was crucial for delivering Eastern resource
portfolios into Europe.”
VII. Conclusion
A. Many globalization studies are steeped in presentism and eurocentrism. The general
principle is, the later the timing of globalization, the greater Europe’s role and the
more Eurocentric the perspective (Nederveen Pietersee 1995).
B. The long view gives a deeper insight in the history and depth of human
interconnectedness. While its advantage is, it embeds globalization in the longue
durée and in evolutionary time, its disadvantage is that globalization becomes too
wide and general a category.
C. Identifying different phases and centers of global history is difficult as well as poses
problems of identifying and labeling periods. If globalization is defined as growing
connectivity, the rhythms of globalization are a function of connectivity conditions,
spurred by transport and communication technologies and conditions of security.
D. “The proliferation and spread of supraterritorial connections brings an end to what could
be called 'territorialism', that is a situation where social geography is entirely territorial.
Although territory still matters very much in our globalizing world, it no longer
constitutes the whole of our geography.”
E. The first four approaches are all compatible with territorialism, the fifth is not. Within a
territorial orientation 'place' is identified primarily with regard to territorial location.
However, we have witnessed a fundamental change. There has been a massive growth in
social connections that are unhooked in significant ways from territory.
A. Globalization as a process
Globalization – A set of social processes that appear to transform our present
social condition of weakening nationality into one globality; human lives
played out in the world as a single place; redefining landscape of sociopolitical
processes and social sciences that study these mechanisms.
B. Globalization as a condition
Globality – A future social condition characterized by tight economic, political,
cultural and environmental interconnections and global flows, making currently
existing political borders and economic boundaries irrelevant.
C. Globalization as an ideology
Global Imaginary - A concept referring to people’s growing consciousness of
belonging to a global community
-destabilizes and unsettles the conventional parameters within which people
imagine their communal existence
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Tutorials
Core literature
Steger, Manfred B., Paul Battersby, and Joseph M. Siracusa, eds. 2014. The SAGE
Handbook of Globalization. Two volumes. Thousand Oaks: SAGE publications. (Chapter
1: Approaches to the Study of Globalization, pp. 7-22.)
Various scholars have mixed and opposing views on the meaning of ‘globalization’ This
reading material explores how leading professor of Global Studies, Manfred Steger, provides a
general overview of the principal academic approaches to the study of globalization proposed by
leading global studies scholars since the 1990s.
“Even after more than two decades of intense scholarly scrutiny, ‘globalization’ has remained a
contested and slippery concept. In spite of the remarkable proliferation of research programs for
the study of globalization, there are many different approaches to the study of globalization. Since
the beginning of self-conscious academic inquiries into multiple process of globalization in the
early 1990s, academics have remained divided on the utility of various methodological approaches,
the value of available empirical evidence for gauging the extent, impact, and direction of
globalization, and, of course, its normative implications. The failure to arrive at a broad scholarly
consensus on the subject attests not only to the contentious nature of academic inquiry in general,
but also reflects the retreat from generalizing initiated in the 1980s by the influential
‘poststructuralist turn’ away from the ‘grand narratives’…
“As a result, various scholars have approached the concept of globalization by analyzing and
describing a variety of changing economic, political, and cultural processes that are alleged to
have emerged, except for such broad descriptions as ‘increasing global interconnectedness’, ‘the
expansions and intensification of social relations across world-time and world-space’, ‘distant
proximities’, ‘ a complex range of processes, driven by a mixture of political and economic
influences’, and ‘the swift and relatively unimpeded flow of capital, people, and ideas across
national borders’ (Giddens, 1990; Harvey, 1989; Held and McGrew, 2007; Lechner and Boli,
2011; Robertson, 1992; Steger, 2013; Waters, 2001). A number of researchers object to those
characterizations, some going so far as to deny the existence of globalization altogether. And yet,
the last few years have also seen some emerging areas of consensus as well as the rise of the new
transdisciplinary field of ‘global studies’. (Steger 2014, pp.7-8).
GLOBAL CONNECTIONS: A COURSE BOOK IN CONTEMPORARY WORLD 20
Study Helps
(To prepare for your tutorials, answer this individually. If you do, it would be much easier
for you to contribute to your chairing team’s task.)
Give 3 to 5 Learning goals